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Sin Safari ....(98k)    by William Kane

CARNAL CONGO!

Peter Kenton led a life that was rich in sin and abundant with lust, but as a big game hunter in Africa, he'd learned to adapt, in the still African nights, he'd adapted to the wanton wives of his clients, providing service night and day, no matter how he looked at it. And then he undertook the most unique-and deadly-safari of his career. Barbara Vail, the spoiled nympho who hired him was just part of the problem. The Wild Goats, terrorist Africans, were on the rampage, raping and slaughtering as they went. He had Kuroso to help him, but Kuroso's mind had become twisted and deformed since the time Kenton had saved his life. The Wild Goats were only interested in pillaging, and Kuroso was dominated by a blood lust. Kenton learned of the treachery too late, and then he was bound to a tree to watch while the savages led the women into the center of camp. In his book. Sex Fiend, Dr. L T. Woodward writes: "There is a darker side to sex. This mighty force, when thwarted, when bottled up, when dammed by inhibitions, restraints, or frustrations, can find an outlet in violence..." Barbara Vail had been sexually violent all her life, and now this violence was met in kind...

CHAPTER ONE

THE HOT AFRICAN SUNLIGHT BEAT DOWN ON THE thorn bush. Kuroso, the gunbearer, squatted in the shade of an acacia, casting a long shadow, two rifles across his knees, an immemorial patience in his attitude.

Inside the thicket, shielded from the plain by a tangle of underbrush, Sheila Morris strained upward, her mouth glued to Peter Kenton's.

Sheila was in her early thirties, red-haired, long-legged. Her hunting shirt was open and her bra had been discarded; her breasts, small but piquant, lay open to Kenton's hand. So also discarded were her hunting pants; her long, white legs were scissored around Kenton's.

Kenton pulled his mouth away from hers and smiled down at her. "Sheila," he said.

"Peter," her voice was a whisper, "do you really love me?"

The answer Kenton gave was automatic. It had been asked of him nearly every time he had taken a white woman under the age of fifty on safari. And that was often, for Peter Kenton was known as perhaps the best professional guide and hunter in East Africa.

"Of course I do," he said. "Madly." And then he put his mouth against hers, and as her thrusting tongue entered between his teeth, he countered it with his own.

Sheila's body moved with his long, solid-muscled, wide-shouldered one. He let his hands rove over the small white, soft breasts, caress the nipples, hard as rubies. He drove himself at her, and she tried to meet him with soft, grasping flesh.

Then the thorn bush was silent for a moment except for the rhythm of their breathing. Peter Kenton, twenty-eight, lean and suntanned, closed his eyes and let Sheila's body pleasure him. Simultaneously, he pleasured her with his body, working with a hard strength that, he knew, was of a caliber her husband, Harold Morris, could not match. Morris was very rich and very plump and very white, and he had taken it into his head that he wanted to shoot a lion. With money no object, he had arranged this safari into Kenya, and he had made the mistake of bringing his wife along. From the moment Kenton had seen the lithe, redheaded Sheila, he had known that there would be fringe benefits on the hunt that had nothing to do with money. He could see in her deep and glittering eyes the need that was within her, the need unsatisfied by the soft, white, almost female body of her plump, pink, prosperous husband. From the moment his eyes had met Sheila's, Kenton had known that though the man might have come here to hunt lion, the woman had come only to hunt men.

It was so on most of his safaris. There was, apparently, a primitive chord in most women, and once he got them out in the bush it asserted itself. Kenton could not remember a safari including a woman whom he found desirable on which he had not scored. For that matter, he had scored on some which included women whom he had not found desirable. In their cases, it had been good business. The men expected the professional hunter to see that they killed game. The women expected the professional hunter to see that they experienced at least one moment of their lives in which they knew primitive ecstasy. It was all part of the job.

Sheila, however, was not at all hard to take. She was probably twenty years younger than her pink-faced husband, and she had a lot of stored-up frustrations. They were all being released now, as Peter worked for her time and again. He did not, of course, love her madly or any other way, and she knew it. But it was a charade they had to act out; she needed sex with a real man, a lot of sex. And he was only too happy to supply it. It saved his having to marry, this being able to love his clients' wives on nearly every safari, and he had sometimes wondered if in the United States, from which most of his clients came, there weren't some sort of wild gossip going about concerning him. So you're going on safari. Well, be sure to get Peter Kenton as your guide. He'll not only see that your husband shoots game, but he's divine out in the bushes.

That sort of thing. Ridiculous though it might be, it had made him one of the highest paid white hunters in the area. And he did not dare disappoint a client for fear of stilling the gossip and cutting his income.

Over and above the fact, of course, that he found Sheila Morris a great deal of fun. This was not the first time he had lain in the bush with her, while Kuroso squatted, stony-faced, keeping guard. In fact, the safari was nearly over now, and Kenton was rather sorry to see it end. It had been a great deal more fun than usual Sheila was really an excellent lover.

As she was proving now. Her hips switching and revolving against his jacket, which he had spread out to shield her bare buttocks from the ground. Her mouth hot against his, her breasts seeming to jut themselves into the cup of his palm, her heels drumming back of his legs.

Kenton could feel an accumulation of ecstasy building within himself. Sheila's body worked at drawing him closer, worked hard and with a special knowledge of its own. He felt himself gather all his energies; he felt his belly muscles knot, his back muscles stiffen, and then he gave a final, brutal move. Sheila's body knotted itself at the same moment, arching and twisting, and Sheila let out the cry of a wounded leopard, half scream, half growl, and her legs clung tightly to him, clamped, heels gouging. Then Sheila's breath was an explosion in his mouth and spasm after spasm racked her and drew from him the final tribute of his desire.

Afterward they lay clamped together in the flood of hot sunlight that filtered through the bush for a long time. Sheila whispered, "Oh, Peter, I don't want to go home. I don't. I wish this safari could last forever."

His lips played a last, flickering, gallant course over her breasts. He nibbled the pink juts that topped the white mounds, drew the rough beard of his cheeks across soft flesh.

"So do I," he said at last. "But nothing lasts forever, Sheila. Perhaps you can come back next year. If you can, I'll be waiting."

Her nails dug into his back. "Please," she whispered, "come back with us. I've got money of my own.

I'll divorce Harold. It could be you and me, Peter, the two of us together. Not just on one safari, but always," This was inevitably the point when he had to use the utmost delicacy. He sugarcoated his refusal by stroking her breasts with carefully considered tenderness.

"Sheila, please. You make it awfully tempting. But it wouldn't work. America is civilization. And civilization would be the end of me. You can see that. I belong in Africa, I belong out here in the bush-"

It was an acceptable curtain speech. The women always went for it. , Just as Sheila did now.

"Yes," she whispered, "I suppose so. I can't imagine you in our life the parties, the country club whirl. I suppose that's why you're so different from any man I've ever known. But I wish-"

"Come back," he whispered. "Come back to Africa next year, Sheila. I'll be waiting for you."

"Oh," she said, stroking his back with silky hands, "oh, my darling, I wall, I will."

Then it was all over, and Peter stood up and reached for his clothing.

Sheila sat up, knowing as well as he that it had ended, and she put on her bra and fastened her hunting jacket and slid into her denim pants. She buttoned two buttons of her jacket and then she put her hand on Kenton's wrist.

"I know," she said softly, "that this has all been a fantasy. But I've enjoyed it, Peter. Thank you, thank you very much."

He looked her straight in the eye. He summoned up answer number forty-four. "Thank you, Sheila. IH never forget you."

She dropped her eyes and gave a shaky laugh.

"Well," she said at last, "I I guess we did come out here to hunt, didn't we?"

"You need a lion to fill your license," Kenton said. "I never let my hunters go home with anything unfilled. I don't like for them to be ... dissatisfied."

She squeezed his arm, "This is one client you won't have to worry about in that respect."

Kuroso still sat like a leaden casting in the shade of the acacia, though he had moved around the trunk to keep in the shade. His broad, dark face was expressionless as he stood up. This was something he was quite used to; he had been with Kenton as gunbearer and tracker for a long time. When he chose to, he could speak excellent English and he was quite as intelligent as Kenton himself, but for the sake of impressing the clients, he usually stuck to a pidgin-English mixture that was mostly Swahili in front of a paying customer. Now, without a smile on his handsome features, his huge muscles rippling and gleaming in the sunlight below the sleeves of his khaki shirt and the short legs of his khaki pants, he said: "Bwana and Missy Bwana go hunt Simba?"

"That's right, Kuroso. Simba."

Kuroso pointed. "Simba that way. Down in riverbed."

"Kuroso knows a dry riverbed," Kenton told Sheila. "There's a waterhole along its course and he thinks we'll find a pride of lions there."

Sheila Morris' face was white, but she said, "I'm game." And they climbed into the parked Land Rover.

They drove across a plain that once had swarmed with game. Kenton's practiced eye saw that the animals were thinning out, now. The herds of zebra and wildebeest were smaller, even the Tommies, the Thompson's gazelles, seemed to be declining in number. He knew the cause for it. More and more wild land was coming under cultivation as section after section of Africa gained its independence. Also, freed from the game controls imposed by the British, the natives were slaughtering far more game for meat. Someday, he thought with a tinge of genuine regret, it will all be gone and this plain will be a network of paved roads and housing developments, and possibly barbed-wire fences, like the American Great Plains.

Then he forgot that and gave all his attention to getting the Land Rover over the rough ground. Ahead he saw the line of greenery that marked the dry river bed.

He stopped the car a hundred yards short of it.

"We'll turn into the watercourse," he said, "and proceed up it on foot." He took a moment with Kuroso to check both rifles, heavy Weatherby's. Then he handed one to Sheila and took the other.

Quietly, with Kuroso in the lead, they moved into the bottom of the seam of land. The cleft through which the riverbed ran was high and rocky on either slope, thickly covered with brush and reeds. The riverbed made a pathway for them, a road of sand and sun-dried mud. Kenton saw the pug marks of lion dried in the mud, and he felt a little thrill of anticipation. As far as he was concerned, he lived the ideal life. Sex and hunting were his two passions; he was able to indulge in more of both in a year than an ordinary man could pack into a lifetime.

Then Kenton saw Kuroso stiffen. Ahead of them was a jumble of boulders. Kuroso pointed. Kenton stared and one of the boulders resolved itself into a male lion, head pillowed on paws, its back toward them, its tail switching drowsily.

Kenton tapped Sheila. "There see?" His whisper was directly into her ear and barely audible. "He's a good one. Take him."

He watched Sheila keenly. She raised the heavy rifle, and he eyed her closely for any sign of trembling, of buck fever. There seemed to be none. Kenton held his breath as she sighted in on the lion. She had an excellent shot; he lay at such an angle that a well-placed bullet would go directly in under his left foreleg.

The thunder of the gun was terrific between the walls of the ravine.

There was a roar that sounded even louder than the gunshot. The lion arched into the air, came down facing the hunting party. Blood dripped from a smashed forepaw, the sole result of Sheila's shot. The lion stared at them for one eternal second. Kenton tapped Sheila urgently on the shoulder.

"You've got a head-on shot. Snap him, now!"

She raised the gun again, but this time she was trembling wildly. She fired and missed.

And, with a strange coughing grunt, the lion charged.

He came at remarkable speed on three legs, his great body a tawny blur in the sunlight. "Again!" Kenton yelled, but Sheila stood frozen.

"I can't!" she wailed fearfully.

The lion was only fifty feet away now. Kenton threw up his rifle, lined the sights.

The lion seemed to have run into a brick wall. It actually bounced back under the weight of the heavy slug. Its body did a weird flip, and then it landed on its side. Its feet kicked spasmodically for an instant and then it was still.

"You got it!" Sheila breathed. Excitedly, she started forward.

"Wait!" Kenton grabbed her arm. "Never walk up on a dead lion without making sure it's really dead." He picked up a rock, tossed the rock to Kuroso, and Kuroso tossed it so that it hit the lion on the head.

The beast moved, rolled, pawed the air and coughed.

Kenton shot it again.

"Oh," Sheila whispered. "Oh, if you hadn't stopped me-"

Kenton put his arm around her. "All right, old girl, it was my job to stop you. Buck up." He held her until she stopped shaking. Kuroso stood with impassive face over the body of the lion, one hand clutching a skinning knife. Then, while Sheila sat leaning against Kenton in the shade of a bush, Kuroso skinned the lion.

There was quite a celebration in camp that night. The native boys beat drums and sang songs and danced they knew they had damned well better when one of Kenton's clients brought in a lion. Morris hugged

Sheila and gave her a wet kiss which she tried to avoid by twisting her face. Morris had, saw Kenton, been drinking heavily during the afternoon. By the time they had finished dinner, Morris' head was nodding forward.

He smiled woozily at Kenton.

"Been good hunt," he said. "Never enjoyed anything so much in my life 'cept my honeymoon with Sheila. You a good man, Kenton. Next time I come, you be ready, you hear?"

"I hear, Harold, old chap, and you can lay that I will. It's been a pleasure." The meaning of the manly heartiness in Kenton's words were belied by his covert look at Sheila. She had combed her hair and changed to a tight, white blouse and a tight skirt, cut very short. She was surpassingly lovely. Kenton felt a tinge of regret that tomorrow they would be packing up and heading back to Nairobi. Sheila had been good, really good, much better than the usual floppy, discontented matron who thought that by some magic she had shed ten years and twenty pounds when she got out in the bush with a white hunter. He hated to break off the relationship with Sheila, but there was no help for it.

"Speakin' of Sheila," Morris said, his moon face lighting with lust, "I gotta idea." He grabbed her wrist. "Come on, honey. It's bed time. This may be the last chance we get to make love out here in the boondocks. Less make this last night one to remember, eh, babe?"

Sheila threw Kenton a despairing glance as her husband dragged her toward their tent. Kenton gave her back a look of sympathy and then made himself another gin and tonic. The couple vanished into their tent. Kenton heard the chirr of the zipper on the front of the tent and saw the electric lantern come on in the tent. Then, clearly silhouetted for everyone to watch, were the figures of Harold and Sheila Morris. Kenton saw him stripping the clothes from her, saw the silhouette of her nude body for a moment as her husband bore her back on the double cot. Then the silhouettes became one.

Kuroso squatted not far from Kenton. Kenton made a disgusted sound. "One would think the louse would at least have decency enough to turn off the light."

Kuroso chuckled. "With the load he's got on board, he would have done it right out here by the campfire if he'd have thought of it."

"Well, she got her lion anyway."

"You mean you did. That was a good shot, Bwana Kenton."

Kenton shrugged, stood up. "Have the boys clear away this mess, Kuroso. I'm tired, too. I think I'll go to bed."

"Yes, Bwana," Kuroso said obediently.

Kenton always slept in the nude. It took him only a moment or two to shrug out of his clothes and fold them neatly across his camp chair. He lay down on the cot and tried to sleep, but sleep eluded him. Outside the boma, the thorn-bush barricade they had built around the camp, he heard the booming roar of a lion and the scream of its prey as it killed. He heard the shrill, manic giggle of hyenas, the high-pitched bark of jackals. Somewhere in the distance, an elephant trumpeted.

"Well," he said aloud, "back to Nairobi. I think I'll spend a week with Hiraz before I take on another party." He thought of Hiraz, the English-Egyptian girl who was waiting for him in Nairobi, and the thought stirred him. Once with Sheila today had not been enough for a man of his bull-like vigor. If he only had Hiraz here now, or even Sheila again...

Then there was a whisper at his tent flap. He had left it unzipped, and as he rose on one elbow on his cot, he saw a shadowy form enter the tent.

"Who is it?" he asked hoarsely.

"Shh," Sheila said. "It's I."

Kenton sat up quickly. "Are you crazy? What about your husband?"

"That washout?" Her voice grated in the darkness. "He's so drunk an elephant could sit on him and he wouldn't know the difference. He's out like a light." Her voice softened. "Peter?"

"Yes," said Kenton in a different voice now. His hand reached for a flashlight and he turned the beam of it upon her.

She was wearing only a filmy negligee with absolutely nothing under it. By the flashlight's glow, he could see the shining, jutting roseate circles of her nipples and the dark hollow of her navel. She smiled at him, her eyes warm and excited. Her hands fumbled with the robe. Then she slid out of it, the fabric moving down over her shoulders and arms and past her hips and dropping about her feet, so that her body was an ivory shaft rising out of it.

"Peter," she said again, "what about once more for old time's sake?"

"Yes," said Kenton, and he moved over on the cot as she went to him.

CHAPTER TWO

THERINGTON CRISP, THE HEAD OF TRANS-AFRICA

A Safaris, leaned back in his chair behind his desk and sucked at his pipe thoughtfully. Crisp was in his seventies, a wise, dour, sardonic man who had taught Peter Kenton nearly everything he knew about hunting. Crisp's name was one to conjure with in Africa, ranking alongside those of such old timers as John Hunter and Karamojo Bell. The difference between Crisp and them was that he could adjust to changing times and they could not. That was why Crisp had become a rich man, able to pay Kenton a thumping salary for his services.

"Did you have a successful hunt?" he asked.

"Very," Kenton said.

Crisp did not smile; that was something he rarely indulged in. But there was a glint in his eyes that Kenton recognized.

"The Memsahib was very attractive," Crisp said.

"Yes," Kenton nodded. "Very."

"I hope," Crisp said, "that you left her in such a mood that shell spend a year hounding her husband to come back."

Kenton took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one.

"I daresay she will."

Crisp leaned forward, his face tightening in a manner that Kenton knew meant he was becoming very business-like. "Now," he said, "I have another assignment for you."

Kenton frowned. "Look," he said, "I'm tired. I need some rest."

"You probably do. But not from hunting."

The thrust went home; Kenton smiled.

"Anyway," Crisp said, "this is no regular safari. This is a diplomatic mission on behalf of Trans-Africa Safaris. I want you to go up to the Kinoro territory and parley with Chief Daum."

Kenton stiffened in his chair. His eyes swung to the huge map of Africa that covered the wall behind Crisp's desk. The good humor went off his face and he leaned forward, putting his cigarette aside. "What's going on in the Kinoro territory?"

Crisp turned his swivel chair, took a pointer from his desk, and touched it to the map. "The Kinoro territory lies almost on the Abyssinian border. It's one of the really unspoiled places left in Africa because Chief Daum is hostile to outsiders coming in and killing his game. Only because of his and your connection with Kuroso has he let us have hunting privileges in his region, and we're the only ones who do."

"That's right," said Kenton. "Kuroso is Daum's half brother. Kuroso helped me make the deal with Daum that let us in the Kinoro territory in the first place."

"Right," Crisp said. "But now we have trouble up there."

"What kind of trouble?"

Crisp shrugged and his face went wry. "What kind of trouble is the usual in East Africa these days?"

Kenton was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Nationalism?"

Crisp nodded. "That's right. like every other native ruler, Daum wants his territory to become an independent country. Actually, it's slated to become part of the country of Ruguana when Ruguana gets its independence this summer. But Daum doesn't want Ruguana to rule him; he wants to have his own country."

"So?"

"So, he thinks it's a plot on the part of the whites to make him subservient to the Ruguana government. And he's feeling very bitter toward everybody, white and black alike, whom he suspects of taking advantage of him. Frankly, I believe the blighter intends to try to break loose from Ruguana after the independence ceremony, even if it means a civil war."

"And?"

"And how well do you really know Daum?"

"Pretty well," Kenton said. "Daum and Kuroso had the same father. But Daum and his sister Mary Madeebe is her native name had a white mother. Their father was English-educated. He married a white woman in England and brought her back to Africa as his queen. Daum and Madeebe were born of that union. After she died, their father married a native woman who gave birth to Kuroso."

"How intelligent and clever is Daum?"

"Damned smart. Damned shrewd. But he respects me. It's the custom among the Kinoros that every warrior has to kill a lion with a spear before he can claim to be a man. When Kuroso took me into Daum's country to negotiate for hunting rights, Daum wouldn't even listen to me at first. Said he'd not deal with a man who hadn't killed his lion. So I had to go out and kill a lion with a spear. After that, he was quick to become my great-buddy."

"I see," Crisp nodded. "I thought that was about the size of it. All right. Well, what I want you to do is to go see Daum and try to smooth his ruffled feathers. We don't want all sorts of civil insurrections playing ducks and drakes with our business. We can get a nice premium for a hunt in the Kinoro country and guarantee all sorts of game that other outfitters can't promise any more. I want you to go up there and make sure that no matter what happens, Daum will continue to let us have exclusive hunting rights there."

"What makes you think he won't?"

"Because," said Crisp slowly, his eyes grave, "there are ugly rumors coming out of the Kinoro territory. There's a secret society begun to function there for independence, very much like the Mau-Mau. And dedicated to much the same principles, namely the extermination of white intruders. Whether Daum's behind it or whether it's something that's sprung up without his consent, I don't know. But whatever it is, I want you to persuade him to stamp it out and let us safely continue to take safaris through his country."

"That's a tall order," Kenton said.

"It would be, if Kuroso weren't so loyal and devoted to you. But with his good offices and the respect in which Daum holds you, there should be no trouble ... "

Kenton stood up. "Ha," he said. He walked to a lavatory in Crisp's office and looked at his reflection in the mirror. What stared back at him was a lean, handsome, sun-darkened young man with circles of weariness under his eyes.

"I like this head of mine," Kenton said. "I'd be much happier keeping it than risking it up in the Kinoro country."

Crisp sighed. "I won't order you to go. But it's important to the company. Tell you what, discuss it with Kuroso. See what he thinks about it. Then we'll decide."

Kenton let out a sigh. He knew already that no matter what Kuroso said, he would go. Because Crisp wanted him to, and Crisp had been like a father to him, and this was important to Crisp. "All right," he said, "I'll do that."

"Take a couple of days off," Crisp said. "Get some rest. Then drop back by, and we'll make our plans."

It was quite a lavish bachelor layout that Peter Kenton had set up for himself on the outskirts of Nairobi. When he was off-safari, Kuroso served as his houseboy and personal servant; there was also a comely Kikiyu girl to act as cook and chambermaid. Her name was Nyasa, and there were other services she performed, too. She was extremely valuable in keeping Kuroso happy-

Now, after a long, luxurious bath, a shave, and a change of clothes, Kenton sat in his living room waiting for Hiraz to arrive. Hiraz worked as a secretary to the head of an American trading company, and she was completely Westernized in every respect but one. When she loved a man as she loved Kenton, there was no need for him to go to her. She was only too happy to come to him, on order. He had phoned her earlier in the afternoon.

"I'm back," he'd said.

There had been a little catch in her soft, husky voice. "Oh, very good."

"I'll be waiting for you about eight-thirty."

Promptly and with no hesitation, she said, "I'll be there."

Now, his feet propped up, a cool gin-and-tonic in his hand, another just mixed for Hiraz, he was perfectly content. There was no need to worry about Hiraz's drink getting warm; it would be eight-thirty in just one minute, and she was never late.

Surely enough, in that one moment, he heard the crunch of her little Renault's wheels on gravel outside. He heard the car door slam. Kuroso hurried from another room to open the front door.

She entered and stood in the doorway a moment.

She was just a fraction under medium height. Her hair was glossy black, drawn back sleekly on her head. Her skin was a faint olive shade, her eyes dark and enormous, her nose rather large and straight; her mouth small with full lips, her teeth perfect.

The simple summer dress she wore hugged every line of a bountiful figure. She had none of the Western girl's fashionable gauntness, though she was not fat. Her breasts were huge and remarkably firm, her waist nipped in, but the curve of her belly was visible under the dress at the front. Her hips flared in a soft arch, and, he knew, her thighs were short and strong and very soft. She was a woman made in the Eastern mold for the satisfaction of a man, and he found her very pleasing.

"Peter," she said in her husky, faintly-accented voice, "darling!" And then, as Kuroso withdrew like a shadow, she ran into his arms.

He felt the pillowy contact of the massive breasts flattening on his chest; was aware of the softness of her belly against his solid leanness. He kissed her, and she was ready for his kiss, her tongue leaping hungrily and instantaneously into his mouth, taking an initiative of its own, a softness exploring him. She smelled good, of exotic spices. He knew that, in the Eastern way, she would have perfumed all her body for his delight.

The kiss went on for a long, long time. While it continued, Kenton slid his hand down her back, over the rounded shelf of a curved buttock, lifted that weight of flesh in his hands and squeezed it. She shoved closer against him, pushing the lower part of her body against his excitement, grinding herself against him tantalizingly and voluptuously. Still holding on to each other that way, they dropped back into Kenton's chair, with Kenton beneath and Hiraz on his lap.

At last the kiss broke. She was panting.

"I've missed you," she said, her eyes shining, and she wriggled on his lap in a way that nearly drove him mad.

"I've missed you, too."

"You took a very lovely woman out on safari this time, didn't you?"

"She was all right."

"All right! When you say that, you look like the cat who swallowed the canary."

"Listen, Hiraz. Are you going to be like Western women? Are you going to be all consumed with jealousy? Who cares what I did on safari? The point is, I'm here with you now. And anything I did then well, if you feel you've been missing out, I'll be glad to repeat it for your benefit."

She laughed softly. She cupped one of her pillowy breasts in her hand and rubbed it against his shirt front. Even through the thicknesses of fabrics that separated flesh from flesh, he could feel the hard nipple.

"All right," she whispered. "If you hurry, all will be forgiven." Then she parted her lips for him again.

When he kissed her this time, his hand slid under her skirt. He felt the soft, creamy flesh of the inner part of her thighs, faintly moist with perspiration. He rubbed the roughness of his palm over that sensitive area, and she wriggled on his lap again, only increasing his excitement.

While her tongue did amazing things with his, he let his hand move higher on her thighs. Her breath made an explosion in his mouth as he caressed her. With his other hand he had cupped her left breast; he dug his fingertips almost brutally into the spongy, resilient flesh.

Then neither of them could stand it any longer. Peter picked her up, arms under thighs and buttocks. With a shove of his hard, muscular body, he stood up. Their mouths were still locked together. Her hand dropped down his stomach as he arose, and moved hungrily across his body, seizing him.

He carried her into the bedroom. He had a very large bed, deliberately acquired for just such purposes.

He lowered her to it gently, never disconnecting his lips from hers.

When he put her down, her skirt came up about her navel. He lay down beside her, mouth still locked. His hand groped at her eagerly, and hers reciprocated.

Then he moved his hand, sliding it over the velvety smoothness of her swarthy belly. His fingers lingered for a moment at the tiny indented cup of the navel. They were traveling under fabric when they continued their journey. His hands found the taut, huge mounds of her breasts. He drew his palms across the excited nipples gently, and she sighed into his mouth and raised and dropped her body on the bed.

Then Peter pulled his lips away from hers and his hand from under her dress. He stood up, his hands fumbling with the latch of his belt. "Take that dress off," he said hoarsely.

She arose beside him.

"Remove it for me," she whispered and turned her back to him.

There were little hooks to be unfastened at the rear of it. His fingers trembled as he got them loose one by one, revealing smooth, unblemished skin of dusky ivory. As each hook came loose, he bent and kissed the area of flesh thus revealed, and Hiraz trembled uncontrollably.

Then all the hooks were open and the dress was completely agape in back, down to the base of her spine. Kenton could see the rounded bulges of the beginnings of her buttocks. He let his lips travel down her spine and kissed those soft upper slopes. Then, breathing hard, he took the hem of the dress and pulled it over her head and she was naked. She sank back to the bed, lying face down, waiting.

Kenton took no more than a second to get out of his clothes. Then he was on the bed with her. He lifted the ravens-wing sheaf of hair at the back of her neck and kissed the softness there. Then his lips traveled down her spine. With them, he traced the rising curve of each buttock and nibbled at the backs of her thigh.

Suddenly he was aware of lips on his own body. He felt their caress at his calves, just below his knees, for as his mouth had traveled, he had turned on the bed. The lips were hungry, the tongue tracing moist little circles. The lips ascended his thighs with infinite slowness, moved over the hard, plated muscles of his belly, then began to descend again. He felt the soft, billowing flesh of her breasts against his torso.

The lips lingered for moments that stretched out into eternity. Peter lay with his eyes closed, his body racked with shudder after shudder of enjoyment. His nostrils were full of the exotic perfume of Hiraz; there was no place she hod missed in applying it.

Then, just as it seemed he could bear it no longer, the kiss went away. Now she was on her knees beside him, great breasts dangling, their tips brushing his chest. Her mouth fastened on his stomach and then moved up his chest, out over the hard pectoral muscles. Then to the base of his throat and then up the line of his jaw to his ear, and he groaned and clamped his arms about her and rolled her over on the bed. She let out a sharp, barking laugh of excitement.

Completely maddened, Kenton took her with terrific force.

"Allah!" Hiraz gasped. "Oh, God," and her body rose ferociously to meet him, and after that they were working in perfect unison. She worked as strongly with her hips as he with his, and he buried his face between the perfumed mounds of her breasts, shaking his head wildly and joggling the flesh that fenced him in, vibrating it, so that Hiraz squealed.

He felt confident of his strength, and he was hardened by the long trek he'd just been on and had the endurance of a lion. Hiraz squealed, her body rose, shook all over, pulled at him in a wild spasm and then relaxed, but Kenton kept on. And after a moment of lying still, Hiraz's body began to move again, quickly regaining its earlier ferocity, and the whole thing happened all over again. By the third time that it happened, she was breathlessly begging for mercy from him, and he unloosed the chains of self-control that held him and the huge reservoir of ecstasy that he had kept dammed up overflowed.

When that was done, Hiraz lay motionless on the bed, eyes closed, gasping for breath. At last she managed, "Oh, Peter. You're incredible, fantastic."

He nibbled at the lobe of her ear, let his tongue dart into it briefly. "I like to give all my customers their money's worth," he whispered.

"Did you get your money's worth?" she whispered.

"Yes," he told her. "But I'll get it again, before the night's over. And maybe again..."

"Whatever you say," she murmured drowsily, and rolled against him, pulling his face down against her breasts.

He nibbled at them, drawing at the flaccid tips, caressing them until he felt them responding again. His hand stroked her rounded stomach with a circular motion. He felt her hips begin to move and shift and grind.

"That's it," she whispered. "Keep on kissing them. Pull at them." Her hand tightened on the nape of his neck. "Hard," she said hoarsely, "kiss them hard..."

Kenton was awakened by a hand on his shoulder. Slowly, groggily, he opened his eyes.

Kuroso stood beside the bed with Kenton's morning coffee on a tray. The huge African let a smile split his dark, handsome face. "Good morning, Bwana."

"Morning, Kuroso." Kenton sat up slowly, glancing at the other side of the bed. It was empty. "Where's Memsahib Hiraz?"

"She awakened early. She said she had to go to her job, but to let you sleep, that you probably needed it."

"Yes," Kenton said. He took the coffee. "I hope you had as pleasant a reunion with Nyasa."

"Very pleasant," Kuroso said. He turned to go. "Kuroso."

The African halted, turned. "Yes, Bwana?"

"Kuroso, Bwana Crisp wants us to take a trip to your homeland. To the Kinoro country."

Kuroso's eyes seemed to glaze; his face turned impassive. Immediately Kenton knew that he disapproved of the idea.

"Now," said Kuroso, "would be a very bad time to go there, Bwana Kenton."

"There's trouble?" Kenton knew that the grapevine telegraph would have given Kuroso a far more accurate picture of conditions in his homeland what his half-brother's plans were than he or Crisp could have gathered from official reports in a month of Sundays.

"Yes," said Kuroso. "Trouble. Plenty trouble."

Kenton sipped the hot coffee.

"We can't afford to lose the hunting concession there," he said. "That's why Crisp wants us to go."

"The hunting concession's loss," Kuroso said, "would not be as bad as the loss of Bwana Kenton's head."

"Who's going to take my head. Daum?"

"Not Daum. He values Bwana Kenton's friendship. But there is in my homeland another faction operating. They are more radical than Daum, they want to seize control from him and set up an independent state from which all white men will be banished. Their name in Kinoro "would be too long and hard for you to say, but, translated into English, they call themselves the Wild Goats."

"The Wild Goats," repeated Kenton. "A secret society like the Mau-Mau? A bunch of rapists?"

"Modeled after the Mau-Mau," said Kuroso. "The Mau-Mau terrorized all who were not members, even their own people. They forced people to help them on fear of death, and made their members take terrible oaths of loyalty administered by witch doctors. They murdered every white person they could. So also it is now in my homeland. Daum wants his country to be independent, but to have ties with the whites. The Wild Goats want the country to be ingredient and to make it mandatory death for any white who enters."

"And Daum hasn't been able to control them?"

"No."

"And even if we got permission from Daum to keep the hunting franchise, we'd still be in danger from the Wild Goats. They might rape the women."

Kuroso nodded.

Kenton considered, rubbing his face thoughtfully. He had no doubt of the truth of what Kuroso was telling him, for he had tested Kuroso's loyalty, intelligence and courage too many times to doubt the man. They had been together for years, ever since Kenton, hunting near the borders of the Kinoro country had heard, one day, the infuriated screaming of a bull elephant. It had been nearby, too, and Kenton had crashed through the brush toward it, recognizing that sound. He had heard it before the elephant was out to destroy completely either one of the major predators, or a man. And, mingled in the fierce trumpeting of the elephant, Kenton had been sure he heard the shouts and cries of a human being.

He'd blundered into a clearing and onto a sight that had chilled his blood.

A gigantic elephant had a native pinned flat on the ground, between his tusks, which were rammed into the earth. The elephant, after the manner of its kind, was ramming its tusks in deeper, trying to get its forehead low enough to apply crushing pressure on the victim's naked chest. The native, a brawny man, had not despaired. Savagely he was drumming his bare hands against the elephant's forehead.

There had been time for only one shot. It had to go into the rogue's eye. Kenton aimed and fired without thinking.

The elephant's trumpeting had broken off in mid-squall. Suddenly the huge, gray bulk collapsed. Only the tusks, implanted in the ground, kept the lethal weight of its head from the helpless African.

Kenton had been astounded to hear the native say, in flawless English, as he came up: "Thanks. Now, get this thing off me."

But, of course, it had been Kuroso's Western-trained father who had taught him English. Had taught him a great deal else, too. Kuroso knew the usages of civilization as well as Kenton, but to some extent he seemed to reject them. He could have easily had a job in a government office; instead, he had chosen the comparatively menial position as Kenton's gun-bearer and number one boy. He was fantastically skilled in bush lore and quite as good a shot as Kenton. The two of them had been together on more safaris now than they could count, and the tight place out of which Kenton had pulled Kuroso on their first meeting had not been the last; nor had Kuroso failed to return the favor. There had been several times when his staunchness in the face of danger and his perfect shooting eye had saved either Kenton or a client. Though one was presumably the master and the other servant, there was mutual respect between them, and Kenton did not take Kuroso's warning about the Wild Goats lightly, as he might have a similar one from a less reliable and more superstitious African.

Now Kenton swung his legs out of the bed.

"Then it's more important than ever that we see Daum." He remembered Hirez' soft thighs.

Kuroso's eyes widened. "Why?"

"To remind him that he has white friends. To make sure that he uses all possible influence against the Wild Goats. And to learn the true situation and arrange for Daum to have help against them if needed."

Kuroso looked thoughtful. Then he said, "Very well. If it is your determination..."

"It's my determination." Kenton stood up. "I may have my failings, Kuroso, but I love Africa quite as much, I'm sure, as you do. I understand the feelings of its people who want independence. But what good is independence when it results in turmoil like, that in the Congo, say? I happen to think that we whites have an obligation to offer our help, to guide the new nations as much as possible. If our help is turned down, that's another affair, but at least we should let it be known that it's there if wanted."

Kuroso nodded. "Very well. If we are to go, we are to go. When shall we leave?"

"I don't know. I'll see Crisp first. I'd like to have a few days to hang around. Hiraz will be very unhappy if I go immediately."

Kuroso smiled thinking of the sexual woman.

"Nyasa will claw her breasts if I leave at once, and rub ashes in her hair with grief. It would be well to stay a few more days."

"I'll see Bwana Crisp today and arrange it," Kenton said.

He was humming as he walked into the offices of Trans-Africa Safaris later in the morning. Last night with Hiraz had relaxed him enormously. He was looking forward to a similar session tonight.

Crisp saw him immediately. The old man was standing at the window, tamping rough-cut into a pipe and looking out at the teeming street below. Nairobi was a big city now, and quite as modern as any in Africa, or in the western world, for that matter. Nevertheless, only a few miles from its center, giraffe could still be seen, lions coughed at night, and it was not infrequent for leopards to raid the chicken pens of the black citizens on the outskirts.

"All right," Kenton announced. "I've talked to Kuroso. The situation's pretty sticky up in Daum's country, but the consensus is that we go."

Crisp turned and stuck his pipe into his mouth.

"I'm afraid the trip's off," he said.

"What?" Kenton arched his brows.

Crisp shrugged. The trip's off. At least temporarily. I've had an unexpected request for a safari, and I don't have anybody available to assign except you. As a matter-of-fact, you've been specifically requested."

"I don't understand," Kenton said, a little off-base.

Crisp smiled around the stem of his pipe; his faded blue eyes were knowing.

"You will when you see the client. Apparently she's picked up some gossip about you, Peter. I don't know whether you've been recommended as a professional hunter or a professional sex stallion, but I should rather imagine the last. You seem to be getting an international reputation in the bedroom department."

Kenton opened and shut his mouth wordlessly.

Crisp laughed. "Oh, don't gape like a fish. It's good for business, so long as you don't let a husband catch you at it." He sat down behind his desk. "Frankly, if I were forty years younger, this is one expedition I'd take out myself." He took his pipe from his mouth. "Have you ever heard of Barbara Vail?"

Kenton knitted his brows. "Barbara Vail? It rings a bell."

Crisp took a magazine with a gaudy cover off his desk and tossed it to Kenton who took it automatically. "I went to the trouble of sending out for this rather scrofulous American publication," Crisp said. "I believe they call it a scandal magazine. Open it to page twenty."

The name of the magazine was Scuttlebutt. Kenton spared a second for perusal of the undraped showgirl on its cover and then he opened it as instructed. From page twenty leaped the question: WILL BARBARA EVER GET ENOUGH?

Above the screaming type, there was a picture of a startlingly beautiful blonde wearing an extremely low-cut gown.

"If her equipment in the upper story hasn't been retouched," Crisp said dryly, "she must be a sight to behold."

"Yes," said Kenton, reading.

"She's one of these madcap heiresses. Lots of money, lots of men, no responsibilities. Always on the go, apparently. Well, it seems that she and some of her friends got roaring drunk in Cannes and decided that it would be nice to go on an African safari. When they sobered up, they were here. Apparently they think it's still a fine idea, because Miss Vail called me this morning to make the arrangements. Do you remember Karen Thomas?"

"Karen Thomas?" Kenton repeated the name blankly.

"I believe you had her on safari last year," said Crisp. "And apparently in every sense of the word."

It dawned on Kenton then. "Oh, yes. American, Roy Thomas and his wife. Oh, certainly. She was a little overweight," he grinned at Crisp, "but quite active, nevertheless."

"Well, she's a friend of Barbara Vail's, and it seems she's given Miss Vail a glowing sex recommendation." Crisp turned his pipe in his hand and sighed, as with regret. "Ah," he said, "to be thirty again." He straightened up and his voice became business-like. "Miss Vail and her party will have to be outfitted from scratch. She says price is no object; she wants the best. She has no idea of what she wants to shoot or where she wants to go, but she's willing to pay whatever it costs." He handed Kenton a slip of paper. "Here's her room number at the hotel. I'd suggest you get over and see her right away."

Kenton nodded. "Very well, sir. I'll tell Kuroso the trip to the Konori country is postponed. I suppose it'll be next on the agenda when I return."

"It will. It's of utmost urgency, but we can't turn down a client like Miss Vail. Now, out with you." Crisp waved a hand. Relieved because it would take at least a week to make arrangements for the Vail safari, Kenton nodded and turned to leave.

Crisp's voice halted him. "Oh, Peter."

"Yes, sir?"

Crisp smiled. "Proceed with caution. Judging from the story in that magazine, it may be quite possible that Miss Vail will be your match in the shall we say, the bedroom department?" Kenton turned red.

"I'll try to survive, sir," he said and marched out.

Barbara Vail's party had engaged half of one floor in the best hotel in Nairobi. When Kenton phoned from the lobby, a cool feminine voice belonging to someone identified as Miss Vail's personal secretary answered. Kenton told her who he was. In the background, he heard the voice of another woman as the secretary paused to consult. Then the other woman's voice said quite clearly, "Tell him to come right up."

Five minutes later, Kenton was knocking at the door of Barbara Vail's suite.

A small, pretty girl in her mid-twenties opened the door. She had chestnut hair that made a halo of curb about her head. She wore a severely tailored suit.

"You must be Miss Vail's secretary," the hunter said. "I'm Peter Kenton."

"How do you do, Mr. Kenton? Yes, I'm Cynthia Blake. Come in, please. Miss Vail's expecting you."

"Thank you." Kenton entered the living room of the suite.

A woman's voice said huskily from behind the back of the sofa, "Hello, Kenton. Come in and sit down. Do it quietly. I've got a hangover."

Kenton smiled and walked around the sofa to stare at the woman who lay sprawled on it.

She wore, apparently, only a thin satin robe that clung to every curve and jut of her body and that had fallen away, quite ignored, from her legs, revealing long, white lengths of perfect thigh and calf, terminating in slender ankles and small, pedicured feet with painted nails. Kenton saw the flesh first, automatically, then his eyes slid up the rest of the figure.

The satin hugged huge, sharp-pointed breasts, modeling even the contours of the nipples. If anything, they were larger than Hiraz'. Kenton fought down an immediate impulse to reach out and touch them to see if they were real.

The robe was open at the throat, showing the shadowy cleft where they began. Her head, propped against a pillow, was covered with a shimmering fall of smooth, ash-blonde hair that gleamed in the sunlight from the window.

The face was one of the loveliest Kenton could ever remember seeing.

Every one of Barbara Vail's features was perfect, from the high, arching brows to the straight, small nose, to the carefully painted lips and the firm chin.

Kenton felt a sudden leap of excitement as she turned her head and focused eyes that were an odd, smoky, swirling green-blue on him. The eyes seemed to be nibbling at him as they roved up and down his long, wide-shouldered body.

Then Barbara, who could not have been over twenty-five, smiled, showing perfect teeth that looked very sharp.

"You'll do," she said in that husky voice. "Sit down. Cyn, get Mr. Kenton a drink. Scotch and soda?"

"It's very early in the morning," Kenton said automatically.

"It's never too early for Scotch," Barbara Vail said. "Drink, Mr. Kenton, or you'll be a living reproach to my own bad habits, and I don't like people who reproach me."

"Well," Kenton smiled, "I could do with a spot."

Barbara raised one long, perfect leg, as white as milk, and inspected its curved and symmetrical length critically. This made the robe fall open even a little further up. Kenton saw what most women would have gone to great lengths to conceal, but which Barbara Vail seemed unselfconscious about revealing. His throat went dry with a quick thrust of excitement, and he swallowed hard.

"I want to go hunting," said Barbara Vail.

"Yes," said Kenton with some difficulty. "So I understand."

"I want to shoot," she said, "a lion, an elephant, and a tiger."

Kenton grinned. "Easy enough except for the tiger. There are none in Africa."

"Then well import one," she said carelessly.

Kenton shrugged.

"Seriously, I want to hunt big game." She rotated the leg, still looking at it. Kenton stared too. "Something big and fierce and dangerous."

"I suspect we can find it for you."

"I understand," she went on, almost as if talking to herself, "that you're big and fierce and dangerous, too."

"Oh, I'm sure you've been misinformed," Kenton said modestly.

"Not unless Karen Thomas is a liar. And I've never known her to lie about a thing like that." Barbara drew in a deep breath that made her breasts rise and fall interestingly under the tight satin. She looked at Kenton with that smoky gaze again, and her tongue slid across her bottom lip, leaving a trail of gleaming moisture. "Are you really big and fierce and dangerous, Mr. Kenton? Because if you aren't, I don't want to go on safari with you."

Kenton shrugged. "Oh, I'm sure we'll get to that in due course." He was fairly sure he had her taped now. The spoiled rich girl out for a new sensation. Well, he'd do his best to give her one, all right.

Cynthia Blake brought their drinks just then. "That'll be all, Cynthia," Barbara dismissed her bluntly. Cynthia nodded and left the room, shutting the door behind her.

Barbara turned on the sofa until she was facing Kenton. Now the robe had fallen away from her hips. From the navel down, there was nothing between her and Kenton's gaze. She seemed completely unaware of it. She raised her glass. "Cheers," she said and drank deeply.

Kenton stared at the smooth whiteness of her stomach, the dimple of a navel. "Cheers," he said numbly, completely preoccupied.

Suddenly she sat up. Now the robe gaped open about her breasts, too. Kenton raised his eyes to the tempting globes that were almost fully revealed. He could see the rims of pink that were the beginnings of her breasts. Only the loose belt above her navel held the robe shut at all.

"Karen Thomas told me-" Barbara Vail said, and then she went into a detailed and anatomical recital of what Karen had told her. As Kenton remembered it, Karen bad given quite an accurate account. She had withheld nothing from Barbara. Kenton sat stiffly and a little abashed, but aroused, too, both by the sight of Barbara's body and by the sound of the casual Anglo-Saxonisms that came from her pretty lips.

"So if what Karen said is true," she finished, "it should be a most interesting safari." She lowered her lids and looked at Kenton over the rim of the glass. "Is it?" she asked softly. "Is it true, Kenton?"

"Well, I-it's not for me to say."

Her lips curved slightly.

"You see, Kenton, I like men. I have always liked men, ever since I was a little girl of eight and a groom of my father's cornered me down at the stables one day. I thought it was a delightful thing he did to me and we carried on quite an affair until my father caught us at it. Immediately he shipped me away to boarding school." She smiled and shrugged. "I'm shocking you, Kenton."

"Go ahead," Kenton said. "I don't think you can shock me any more."

"Probably," Barbara said, "I infected the whole school with the sex virus. I was what? Oh, twelve when I went in, about sixteen when I was let out to go to college. It was a drag, shut in there with all those girls, and I had to do something to pass the time, do you understand, Kenton?"

"I think I do," Kenton said, realizing that he had been wrong. Her capacity to shock him seemed infinite.

She crossed her legs as unconcernedly as if she were wearing pants. "Of course, when I was turned loose in a coeducational college, I made up for lost time. I'm a very highly sexed woman, Kenton, and I have a great deal of trouble finding a man who can keep me happy."

"Yes, I should imagine," Kenton said.

"So I need to know," she said softly. "I don't want to buy a pig in a poke, Kenton, as we say in America. I don't want to find myself out in some forsaken wilderness with a guide who's a lousy lover."

"I see," Kenton murmured.

Barbara set down her drink. Then her hands went to the tie of her robe.

"So," she said, "I want you to make love to me, Kenton."

"Now?" said Kenton.

The robe fell open. She stood up.

"Nowl"

CHAPTER THREE

KENTON SAT FROZEN WHERE HE WAS FOR A MOMENT.

His eyes went in fascination to her magnificent, outjutting breasts, not a vein visible in either, the nipples as round and symmetrical as silver dollars, their centers distended turgidly.

Barbara gave him a lopsided smile.

"Always the boobs, eh? Men always look at them first, don't they? All right, if it'll satisfy your curiosity, my measurement is forty-four. It's quite a lot, you know."

"Yes," said Kenton slowly, "I know."

Barbara took a step toward him. She bent forward slightly. The breasts dangled directly in front of his face. A swaying nipple caressed his lips.

All right, Kenton thought. If it's what you want, you witch, I have no compunctions about giving it to you. Suddenly he reached out and caught one of her nipples with his lips.

She put a hand behind his head and crushed his face down into an immensity of soft flesh.

"That's it," she whispered, and with her other hand she took his drink from him and set it aside and pulled him back to the sofa.

She was, Kenton thought, terribly clever. As he nuzzled her breasts, she began undressing for him. Her hands went to his belt. She handled all the hardware of the trousers with a dexterity of long practice. Her hand ran over him greedily, exploring, and she gave a low moan deep in her throat.

"Good," she whispered breathlessly. "Karen didn't exaggerate. Just right for me." Then she pulled him downward, hand guiding him to a grasping warmth. Her hips began to move, very gently, transmitting ripple after ripple to him, each ripple yielding its quota of sensation that ran all the way through his body. It was maddening. He had never known a woman with a trick quite like that. He worked hard, and she held him back for a moment.

"Not so fast," she whispered. "Slow. Slow and easy. Let it build."

She kept on moving her hips m that gentle way. He caught the rhythm of her body then, and he made motions of his own that took the ripples she sent him and returned them to her. All at once they were both panting at a height of desire, and then all gentleness ended, and Barbara became a driving, clawing, inarticulate fury, all wet mouth and soft breasts and scratching hands and clamping thighs and drumming feet, and Kenton became a piled river, giving blow after blow with the strength and precision of a great machine, and never in his life had he had such an effect for a woman as he had then for Barbara Vail.

She seemed to go quite insane. She made odd blubbering sounds. Sometimes words came through. "Faster! That's it, don't stop! Oh, God, don't stop-"

Then she yelled, so loud it must have been heard over the entire floor: "Now!" Her body bucked and dragged at him, grinding him softly and irresistibly. Kenton felt the pressures that had built up in him ready to break loose. He put all his strength into one last brutal effort.

She arched her body and kept it arched, rigid, like a bridge spanning a river, buttocks together, knees bent, feet braced. The room whirled crazily about Kenton. Everything in him seemed to blow up. He heard his breath go out in a shuddering gush, straight to her mouth, which was clamped tightly on his, tongue reaching as far as it would go.

They stayed like that for what could have been seconds, minutes, or eternities, until the room came back into focus and her body began to lower to the sofa.

Then she relaxed, his chest cushioned on the soft mattress of her bosom, her thighs stroking his flanks gently.

She wrenched her mouth away and stared at him with wide, astonished eyes.

"You," she whispered, "are even better than Karen said. I can hardly wait until we get started ... "

After a while, Kenton sat up and reached for his clothes. He drew them on and Barbara rearranged the satin robe about herself. She sat up weakly, smoothing back her hair, and reached for her drink with a hand that trembled. Kenton's hand was none too steady as he grasped his glass.

"Well," she said brightly, "I should think that would get us off to a roaring start."

"Yes," said Kenton. "It was roaring all right."

"Now," Barbara said, "you might as well meet the

"rest of the dear little group you're going to have under your wing." She threw back her head. "Cynthia!"

The door opened from a connecting room. "Yes, Miss Vail?"

"Cynthia, will you ask everyone to come in here, please?"

"Yes, Miss Vail." She disappeared. A moment later she reappeared, followed a man and a woman. The woman was a blowsier version of Barbara Vail; her breasts were not as large, but her face had more fullness, a certain dissipated slack to it. Her hair was the same color as Barbara's. Kenton would have guessed that she was a couple of years older than Barbara; he was startled when she was introduced as Barbara's younger sister.

"Countess di Far bo," Barbara said. "My baby sister, Marion's her first name. And her husband, my brother-in-law, Count di Farbo. Marion, Guido, this is Mr. Peter Kenton, hell be our guide isn't white hunter the term you use, Mr. Kenton?"

"Approximately," he said. "How do you do?"

"Hi," Marion said without enthusiasm, though he thought he saw her eyes kindle as they roamed over his tall frame.

"Mr. Kenton." Count Farbo came forward. He was tall, elegant, handsome, very pale, his hair coal Mack, his upper lip emphasized by a thin mustache. Normally, Kenton guessed, he would be the languid type, but now he seemed agitated. He thrust out his hand and shook Kenton's. "I do hope you can talk Barbara out of this insane idea."

Kenton arched his brows. "Insane? What's insane about wanting to bunt big game?"

Di Farbo spread his hands in outrage. "Why everything! Going into the wilderness with a lot of filthy, treacherous blacks. Sleeping on the ground. Being surrounded by wild animals, lions and elephants and other dreadful creatures like that "

Barbara laughed, a trilling, silvery sound, but with a touch of contempt in it too. Her breasts heaved.

"Guido doesn't think much of the strenuous life, Mr. Kenton," she said. "About forty years ago in the United States they would have called Guido a lounge lizard, or a cookie-pusher."

Di Farbo's upper Hp trembled as he whirled on Barbara. "Now, Babs, you have no right-"

She waved a hand at him as if in dismissal and he quenched his flow of words.

"You see, Peter," she said, "Marion and Guido aren't very enthusiastic about this safari."

Kenton frowned. "Then why bring them? It's really not a very good idea to have someone on safari who's reluctant to be there. It rather spoils the fun "

"It won't spoil my fun," Barbara laughed.

"She's' a sadist," Guido said bitterly. "She hates me."

"I do not," said Barbara. "But you're hoist on your own petard, Guido. You married poor Marion for her money. And then you found out that she didn't have any, that under the terms of daddy's will, I control the family fortune. And you haven't got over it yet, have you?"

"Babs, I'm warning you, some day I'll " Guido's upper lip was trembling quite perceptibly now.

Kenton's' eyes swung to Marion. "What about you, Countess? How do you feel about going on the safari?"

Marion shrugged. "I have to do what the queen bee says," she murmured. "Otherwise I don't eat regularly." Her buttocks shivered.

"You see, Mr. Kenton, I control all funds," Barbara said easily. "They have to come to me for every penny, because Guido's far too lazy to go to work. So it rather puts me in the driver's seat."

"I don't imagine it wins you any good will," said Kenton. His enthusiasm for this safari was vanishing rapidly. He hated taking out multiple clients who were in discord among themselves. One always had to be alert when there were hatreds in camp. No matter how posh the expedition, there were still a lot of ways one could get killed on purpose on safari and still have it look like an accident.

"I'm not worried about good will," said Barbara. She drew herself to her full height. "Mr. Kenton, my father was an oil wildcatter. He started out as a roughneck in the Oklahoma oil fields. Then he scraped together a little money and a borrowed rig and set out on his own to drill for oil. He went broke seven times before he finally hit. But when he hit, he hit big. He was tough and ,he was ruthless, and he hated weaklings. I'm my father's daughter, Mr. Kenton." She flung a quick glance at Guido di Farbo. "I hate weaklings too."

"I see," Kenton murmured.

"Maybe," said Barbara, "a safari will put a little starch in Guido's backbone. If it doesn't, at least it should open Marion's eyes to exactly what kind of creature she allowed to marry her."

There was nothing Kenton could say to that.

Barbara shrugged at the silence that followed. "And you've met Cynthia, my personal secretary, sometime maid, and the fourth member of our group."

The small, chestnut-haired girl stood quietly. Her figure, Kenton thought, was nothing smashing, but it was good enough, and she had a sweet face. Kenton said, "What about you, Miss Blake? How do you feel about going on safari?"

Cynthia made a small, noncommittal motion of her shoulders. "I get paid to go wherever Miss Vail goes." Her breasts quivered.

"I see. Well," said Kenton, "it looks like we shall have a great little party. Miss Vail, may I speak to you in private?"

She grinned at him sardonically. "Don't tell me you're ready again," she murmured.

"Seriously," said Kenton, with a touch of acerbity. "About the safari."

"Okay. Shoo." She waved her hand at the others. Obediently, almost as if she had witched them away with a spell, they disappeared. A door closed behind them and Barbara said, "Well?"

"Miss Vail "

"Call me Babs It's shorter."

"All right. Babs, then. Really, if you want to go on a safari, if you want to take Miss Blake with you, I think that's fine. But you shouldn't drag two unwilling members along in the party. It could be quite dangerous, believe me. At the least, inconvenient."

"What are you driving at?"

"I've only been here a few moments. But I can see that there's no love lost between you and Count di Farbo nor with your sister, either. Now, you take these people out on safari and put guns in their hands under all sorts of conditions. Miss Vail Babs, what would happen to your money if anything happened to you?"

"Oh," she said quietly, "that's it."

"Yes. Wouldn't it go to your sister?"

Babs nodded. She remembered his aroused body.

"Babs, have you ever read a story by Ernest Hemingway? It's called 'The Short, Happy Life of Francis McComber.'"

"Yes. It's the one in which the woman kills her husband and there's no way of telling if it was an accident or not because it happened when she was shooting at an animal."

"That's right. One of the reasons I mention it is because it's a good indication of the kind of thing that can happen if one isn't very, very careful. Frankly, I'm a little reluctant to take the responsibility..."

"Listen, buster," she said sharply, "don't you worry about the responsibility. I'll sign a release absolving you if that's necessary. I want these two where I can keep an eye on them. I'll be the final judge of who's going on this trip, you just concentrate on planning it. Now, where are we going?"

Kenton looked at her with irritation. He detested strong-willed women. He had seen too many of them on safari, devouring their weaker husbands alive. His forebodings about this trip increased, but he could see that it was bound to be very, very profitable for the company if it came off properly.

"I imagine we'll go for lion down around the Serengeti," he said, "to begin with. It's a shame we can't go up in the Kinoro country, but it's too rough up there just now."

Her eyes flared with interest. "The Kinoro country? Where is that? And why is it too rough?"

"It's up near the Abyssinian border, and it's wonderful game country, just about the last unspoiled territory left in this part of Africa. Unfortunately, they're having trouble up there now. A Mau-Mau-like group hacking up all the whites they can find and a lot of the natives, too. They call themselves the Wild Goats."

"The Wild Goats. What a delectable name."

"Yes, they're a savage secret society. I imagine there'll be some wild times up there before they're wiped out. More rape and murder.

Barbara smiled, "I think that sounds just wonderful," she said.

Kenton blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"That about the Wild Goats. It was just what I was hoping to find. Well, that settles it, Peter. We'll go to the Kinoro country or whatever you call it. Maybe I'll even get a chance to kill a Wild Goat. I've done a bit of hunting, but I've never shot a man, you know."

Kenton stared at her, the Wood seeming to slow with chill in his veins.

"You," he whispered, "must be out of your mind."

"Hardly," she said. "Let's have another drink." She went to the connecting door and called something to Cynthia. Then she turned to face Kenton. Her smoky eyes glittered strangely.

"I told you I was my father's daughter, Peter," she said. "Read about me, there's been plenty written. But none of it's half-true. They don't dare print the truth." Her huge breasts rose and fell beneath the clinging satin. "I love danger. I love excitement. I've tried skin-diving and skydiving, I've climbed mountains and I've skied. When I ride, I go for the highest, most dangerous jump. It's the way I am, Peter. I'd hate for this to be any ordinary safari. Let's do it my way, let's go to the Kinoro country and see what happens. What's the matter, do you want to die in bed?" She smiled. "Of course, if I set my mind to it, I could kill you there, too."

"No," said Peter harshly. "I will not take you to the Kinoro country, not you nor any other greenhorn."

The smile immediately faded from her face. Her lips set in a thin, hard line. Her eyes turned stormy and contemptuous.

"Oh, you won't, eh?" she whispered. "Well, we'll see about that."

"There's no we'll see to it," said Peter flatly.

"Listen," Barbara said, "when I give orders, I expect them to be obeyed."

"Sorry. I don't take orders from women. I try to carry out their wishes as far as is realistically possible, yes. But I don't take their orders."

She put her hands on her hips. "Oh, you will, friend. You will."

"We'll see," said Peter, and he turned and walked out

"Pardon, Bwana," Kuroso said. "But you don't want to be completely drunk when Memsahib Hiraz arrives."

"How do you know I don't?" he said bitterly.

Kuroso stared at him a moment and said nothing. Under the steady impact of the servant's eyes, Peter reddened and set aside his third gin and tonic.

He was still seething inside from the experiences of the day. After he had left Barbara's suite, he'd stalked back to Crisp's office. Before the older man could speak, Kenton had thundered his disgust.

"Do you know what that rich American tramp wants to do? Do you know where she wants me to take her?"

Crisp stared up at him imperturbably. "Yes. She just phoned."

"Oh, she did, did she? Then you know she wanted to go up into the Kinoro country."

"Oh, yes, she made that clear." Crisp leaned back and knocked the dottle out of his pipe into a waste-basket. "She also offered the firm a premium of five thousand dollars if you would take her there. And a signed release absolving us from responsibility for the safety of any of her party."

"I tell you, the woman's mad. Luscious, yes, but mad as a batter. Sex-craze too."

Crisp nodded. "It's possible. But her money is quite sane."

Kenton stared at him. "For God's sake, Mr. Crisp, you're not entertaining the proposition seriously?"

Then he saw the glint in Crisp's eyes and he sighed. Crisp was, after all, thoroughly Scottish. A SIN SAFARI Caledonian through and through.

"Five thousand clear profit," said Crisp, "is a lot of money, Pete."

"Yes. And four dead clients are a lot of clients."

"Oh, I made it quite clear that if you took them up there, they couldn't consider themselves as clients of ours. They would be just observers tagging along." He reached for his tobacco pouch and scooped the pipe deep into it. "Look at it this way, Peter, we'd have to run three, maybe four safaris to come up with that clear profit. And you need to go to the Kinoro country anyway. And we could get a signed release. Now, if you fade the trek, lad, and came out successfully, all well and good. If there's trouble "

"What do you mean if?" Peter flared. "I'd be taking three women along. Do you remember the Mau-Mau? Do you know what a secret society like the Wild Goats would do to get their hands on three white women for their rituals?" His voice dropped. "If you remember, Mr. Crisp, they indulge in ritual rape as well as ritual murder."

"I'm aware of that," Crisp said. "In fact, I so advised Miss Vail."

"And?"

"And," Crisp shrugged, "she laughed and said, 'Ritual rape? Sounds like fun!' I'm sorry, Peter. I really do think you should accede to her request."

"No. No, I'll go to the Kinoro country for you. I'll lead the Vail safari. But I will not combine the two!"

Crisp leaned forward.

"Suppose I order you to?" he asked quietly.

"I sbafl refuse."

"And if I insist?-" Then I'll quit"

Crisp sighed. "Realty, Peter, you're being quite unreasonable."

"Okay," Peter had said, "so I'm being unreasonable." His voice softened. "Please, Mr. Crisp. I've been with this firm for a long time. It's' more to me than a job. Don't give me an order I can't carry out "

Crisp stared at him. "I should hate to, Peter But in this case I shouldn't think it was impossible."

"Well, it is. Ritual rape, indeed!"

"You're upset," Crisp said. "We'll talk about it tomorrow. By the way, Peter, if you do it, a thousand of the excess is yours as a bonus. P'raps I should have mentioned that earlier."

"It wouldn't make a damned bit of difference," Peter snapped, and for the first time in his association with Crisp turned and stalked out without saying goodbye.

Now, the day still rankling him, he had been trying to drown his irritation with gin. Surely Crisp would not push him into such a corner.

Kuroso said, "You're disturbed, Bwana. What's the matter?"

Peter picked up the gin and tonic he had just set down. "You're damned right I'm disturbed."

"About the trip into my home country? And the WiW Goats?"

"Absolutely!" Peter sat upright in his chair. "Do you know what Bwana Crisp wants us to do, Kuroso?"

The native waited curiously.

"He wants us to make the trip to see Daum all right, but he wants us to take four greenhorn clients along with us. Three white women included!"

Instead of looking shocked, Kuroso merely arched a brow. "Perhaps that is not such a bad idea. What color are the heads of the women?"

"Huh?" Peter said blankly.

"Their hair?" Kuroso asked with strange urgency. "What color hair do they have?"

"Well, one of them has brownish red hair. The other two are very light blondes."

Kuroso smiled broadly. "Very good!" he said and clapped his hands together.

They were on the veranda of Kenton's house; now Kenton stood up and sat on the banister of the rail. "Kuroso, what's got into you?"

"The trip will be much safer with the white women along."

"You're joking." Kenton remembered the lush bodies.

"No, Bwana. Daum's mother; you will remember, was English. Very blonde. Daum is very fond of blondes. He has sworn on the name of his mother to protect them always from harm."

"Really?" Kenton's voice was incredulous.

"It is a sacred thing with him," Kuroso said. "An oath of great moment."

"Well, I'll be damned," Peter said. "I didn't know that."

"There was no reason that you should. There has been no blonde in our country since the death of my half-brother's mother." Kuroso sounded excited. "I will send word ahead. Damn's soldiers will meet us at the border. If you and I went alone, we would be expected to prove our manhood by taking our chances with the Wild Goats. But with the women along, I'm sure Daum will provide such an escort that we will all be quite safe."

"Well," Peter said thoughtfully, assessing the significance of this. "That puts quite a different light on things. Kuroso, you've just made yourself a hundred dollars!" He bounded from his chair and went inside to the telephone and dialed Crisp's home phone number.

"Crisp here," the older man's voice said after a moment.

"Kenton," Peter said. "Sir, I've changed my mind. If there's a thousand in it for me and you still want me to take the women to the Kinoro country, I'll give it a spin."

"Fine, lad. I'll call Miss Vail at-once and give her the news." Chortling with a Scotsman's satisfaction, Crisp hung up. Kenton turned and walked thoughtfully to the veranda.

"Of course," he said aloud as he came through the front door, "she'll think I'm bending to her will, damn her."

"Pardon, Bwana?" Kuroso asked curiously.

Kenton shrugged. "Nothing," he said. "Skip it. It doesn't matter anyhow." The next time, he'd make love savagely.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE SOUND OP SOMEONE MOVING ABOUT IN THE NEXT room awakened Cynthia Blake. Slowly she opened her eyes, staring into the darkness. She saw a strip of light limning the door between her sleeping quarters and Barbara's and she made a face of disgust and anxiety. So Barbara had come in, probably drunk.

Her conjecture was verified when she heard a lamp turn over. Then Barbara's voice, "Cynthia! Damn it, Cynthia!"

Cynthia sighed and swung out of bed. "Coming, Miss Vail." She wore a simple cotton nightdress, long and demure. Her hair was bound with a ribbon. She slipped her feet into slippers and padded through the connecting door.

Barbara lay sprawled on the floor beside the bed, her arm resting on the mattress, her head cushioned against it, the skirt of her black evening gown above her waist, the long legs, stockinged, glimmering in the light of the one lamp that still remained burning.

"Cynthia, damn it! Want a drink. Then want you to undresh me."

Cynthia closed her eyes for a moment. No, she whispered silently. Oh, no.

Her voice was small but firm. "Miss Vail, I think you've had enough."

"No!" Barbara shook her head and set her golden hair to flying. She stuck out her lower lip. "No, ain' had 'nuff. Never get 'nuff, not of anything but money. An' money's no good, you can' sleep with money ... " She waved a hand in a disjointed gesture. "Damn it, said I need a drink."

"Very well." Cynthia sighed and went to the bar that had been set up in Barbara's bedroom. She mixed an ounce of Scotch with a splash of soda and brought it to Barbara. She tossed it off in one quick gulp and threw the glass across the room.

"Now," she said thickly, rising to her knees, "undress me."

She was on her hands and knees now, beside the bed, hair and massive breasts dangling. Cynthia sighed again. "Yes, Miss Vail," and she stood over the other woman, unfastening the snaps of the dress.

"Look," Barbara cooed thickly, "when I'm down like thish, it's like I'm playin' horsy. Wanta ride, Cyn?"

"No, thank you," Cynthia said coolly.

"Nobody wantsh ride," Barbara said thickly, sadly. "Been all over thish whole damn town lookin' for white hunter Kenton. Couldn't fin' 'im. Finally locate where he lives, his colored boy tellsh me he'sh in bed with a woman. Some Egyptian witch. At boy's really international, ain' he? Damn' independent, too."

"Yes, Miss Vail."

Barbara reared up and put her arms on the bed and pillowed her cheek on them.

"Can't find nobody love me," she said sorrowfully. She scrambled to her feet and raised her arms. "Pull off th' dress, Cyn."

"Yes, Miss Vail." Cynthia bit her lower lip. Then she peeled the tight dress off. She stood there naked except for an unneeded girdle and stockings. She cradled her breasts in unsteady hands and lifted their enormous weights.

"Got these," she said, full of self-pity. "Got these an' want a give 'em to somebody. Nobody wantsh 'em. Nobody." She dropped onto the bed. "Pull the girdle off, Cynthia."

"But first the stockings," Cynthia said, resignedly unfastening the row of snaps around each white, soft thigh.

Barbara giggled. "Ha! That tickles. Cyn ... my little Cyn? You tryin' take liberties with me?"

Cynthia closed her eyes again. "No, Miss Vail."

Barbara blinked at her owlishly. "Whatsa matter, you made outa ice? I seen even women go ape at the sight these boobs. Ain't everybody carries around beauties like these..."

"No, Miss Vail." Cynthia peeled the left stocking off and laid it aside.

"Do that again," Barbara said.

"Do what?"

"Run your hand down my leg that way. It feelsh good."

"I was just removing your stocking," Cynthia said correctly and wearily.

"Awright. Take off the other one. Gimme another thrill." Barbara extended her right leg.

Cynthia turned her back to Barbara, as she unfastened the catches of the other stocking. She was standing bent over between Barbara's thighs. Suddenly

Barbara leaned forward and her hand plunged under Cynthia's nightgown and upward.

Cynthia went rigid. "Miss Vail, please."

"Jus' seein' what you felt like. Almos' had forgot. You feel good, Cyn. You make some man a wonderful wife some day."

"Miss Vail "

"Jus' take the stockin' off," Barbara commanded.

Cynthia peeled it down as quickly as possible and moved away.

"Spoilsport," Barbara pouted. She stood up and hooked her thumbs in the hem of the girdle. "Now you gotta help me get this off."

"Yes," Cynthia said. "All right, Stand still." She caught the waistband of the girdle and peeled it down Barbara's hips, and she tried not to look.

Barbara giggled. "Wish you were a man," she whispered. "I like having a man undress me like that-"

When she had stepped out of the girdle, she dropped onto the bed again. "Cynthia," she said harshly.

The smaller girl dragged her hand across her eyes. "Please, Miss Vail, I was asleep."

"No," Barbara said, "sit down here with me a minute."

Cynthia let her lips crease into a thin line. But, obediently, she sat.

Barbara put her flawless, hungry face very close to Cynthia's, so close that Cynthia could feel Barbara's warm, whiskey-laden breath, see the moisture that dampened her loser lip, the hungry gleam of sharp, white teeth.

"Cynthia," was all Barbara said, and then she took one of Cynthia's hands and put it between her breasts.

Cynthia sucked in a sharp breath and looked away. "Please," she said in a faint voice.

"I don't know the meaning of the word," Barbara said. She humped her shoulders, squeezing her breasts together on the imprisoned hand. "Nice and soft, aren't they, Cynthia? Delicious and delectable. Wouldn't you like to kiss them, Cynthia?"

And now it was coming. The desire. The ravening, reckless, perverted desire that Cynthia fought against every moment of her waking life and that Barbara knew about and never hesitated to take advantage of when it suited her purpose. Suddenly Cynthia gave a groan and buried her face in Barbara's soft.flesh.

Barbara let out a long sigh. "That's better," she breathed.

She lay back on the bed. Cynthia knelt beside her. Barbara's hands moved over Cynthia's body, probing through the nightdress. Cynthia's panting had grown louder and louder; her whole being was shaking with excitement. Barbara smiled up at her. "Why don' you take off that silly nightgown?"

"Yes," Cynthia said quickly. She pulled it over her head in a flat, sweeping motion.

"Now," said Barbara, reaching up to fondle the small, perfectly cone-shaped mounds that adorned Cynthia's chest, "why don't you kiss, me, Cyn? Kiss me right."

Cynthia needed no further encouragement. like a terrier attacking a hare, the smaller girl attacked.

When it was all over and Cynthia lay quenched of fire once more in the darkness of her own bed, while Barbara snored drunkenly in the next room, Cynthia felt, as she always did, terribly dirty. And yet, it was not anything she could help. She was a Lesbian, so she told herself, and there was nothing she could do about it. Her desires were perverted, but she would not take the easy way out, not yield to them. She would fight them.

She fought them constantly, and most of the time she won. Only when it amused Barbara to knock down her defenses did she lose.

It was those very desires that had sent Cynthia fleeing from the small town in which she had grown up, lest she cause a scandal that would be the death of her parents. The same desires had sent her wandering around New York, until at last she knew what her desires really were and what they meant. They meant that she was one with the swaggering butches with close-cropped hair that she had met at certain affairs and something in her revolted when she saw the kind of lives they led. They were neither male nor female, but a poor simulacrum of each. Experimentally Cynthia yielded to some of them, and finally, in a kind of horror, fled them lest she become like them.

She wound up on the continent. She'd had a little money, but it soon dwindled. She had also had an affair with a Frenchwoman. It was a great deal different from the clutching, sweaty-pawed sessions with the men-women in New York, it was handled with delicacy and sensuality and Cynthia had enjoyed Denise's attentions, yet that old element of horror was still present deep inside. Even when she and Denise were together at the greatest pitch of physical ecstasy, a part of Cynthia was screaming with disgust at what she was letting herself do.

Broke, she had had at last fled from Denise, too. Quite by accident, she had met Barbara Vail, who had just fired her last personal secretary for attempting to steal Barbara's paramour of the moment. Barbara had sized Cynthia up keenly and had then offered her the job. "I have you figured for a Lez," she had said bluntly. "Which is all right by me. I'm not choosy and I like a change of pace myself occasionally. Actually, it's a point in your favor. At least you won't be knocking yourself out trying to do the impossible namely, steal my men from me."

Cynthia had born confrontation with what she was. But from that moment on, hearing it voiced so bluntly and hearing it ring in her own ears so disgustingly, she made up her mind that she would no longer yield to her desires, but deny them. To her surprise, it was not as difficult as she had thought it would be, except for the fact that she was in constant physical contact with Barbara, dressing and undressing her, being made, on a thousand different pretexts, to touch Barbara's body. Barbara should have liad a personal maid as well as a secretary, and ordinarily she would have, but she knew the battle Cynthia was trying to fight, and it amused her to watch the girl struggle against temptation when she had to come in contact with Barbara's naked body. And sometimes, just when Cynthia was trying hardest to keep control of herself, Barbara would, with inspired sadism, make an overture it was impossible to resist, and, despairingly, Cynthia would quit fighting her own desires.

Now, lying in the darkness, tears of humiliation and rage at herself welled from Cynthia's eyes. I have got to lick it somehow; I have got to beat it. She told herself that over and over again. Think of something else. Don't think about Barbara. Don't think about what you've just done. Think of something else.

But what?

A man? What man?

Any man. Think of that one here today.

Yes, yes, that's it. That's who you must think of.

Think of Peter Kenton.

She thought. She forced herself to think of him, to shut out the memories that beat in against her. She thought of him in every way possible.

She thought of him naked.

She imagined him in bed with her.

She imagined him making love to her.

Deliberately and in exquisite detail.

She had never let a man make love to her, but she was sure she knew exactly how it was done, and she made her mind dwell on the most intimate details.

It was something she had done often before. It stirred within her, always, a counter-revulsion, a revulsion so great that it made what she had just done with a woman seem clean and pure by comparison.

She waited now for the counter-revulsion to come.

She waited a long time.

But it didn't happen. Instead, she found her imagination functioning with unprecedented vividness. She found her interest captured by the fantasy she was constructing. She was surprised when she felt a hand slide down her belly to her legs and realized, with a start, that it was her own.

It was strange, very strange. She could think about Kenton without revulsion.

Of all the men she had known, he was the only one. Peter, tall and lean and muscular and wide-shouldered and deeply tanned and with an easy, swinging way of walking, a grace of movement, that must have come from a long time spent outdoors.

Why, the thought of his making love to her was not at all revolting. Not attractive, of course, but-

Not attractive? Then why was her hand caressing her?

Why were her breasts beginning to tighten?

What was happening to her?

Was she at long last, after the great battles she had fought, winning a few, losing so many, beginning to emerge as victor?

She did not know. All she knew was that she was excited.

To her this was a momentous thing. She had been able to excite herself by thinking about a man.

She was surprised to find her other hand moving over the soft cones of her breasts. The first hand she let stay where it was, but it became, of its own volition, seemingly, a great deal more active.

Peter Kenton. Imagine him doing this.

And this.

Now her body was shifting on the bed, buttocks pressing, slackening, pressing again. And this.

And suddenly...

Her body tensed, stretched, and a gusty sigh escaped her.

She dropped back into the cradle of a strange, relaxed peace, a great wonder in her, a realization that something strange had happened to her, just thinking about Peter Kenton.

Suddenly she had found herself wanting a man instead of a woman.

And they were going on safari. There would be many weeks in the company of Peter Kenton.

Ample time to explore further this strange phenomenon that occurred tonight. To assess its meaning and its significance.

Suddenly she was looking forward to the safari eagerly. It was as if it were a planned expedition of exploration. Not exploration of terrain, not a seeking out of mountains, rivers and valleys of earth, but a deeper, more important exploration a voyage of discovery into the dark depths of herself.

Still looking into the future with excitement, still feeling that she was on the verge of something vastly crucial, she drifted into the deepest and least disturbed sleep she had known in months.

In an adjoining room on the same floor, Guido di Farbo sat on the edge of the bed smoking a cigarette.

He smoked it in the short, jerky puffs of one who has too much in his mind to sleep. He was keyed-up, nervous, tense.

So they were going. So Babs was really going to implement this ridiculous whim of hers and drag all of them along for her own sadistic pleasure. All right, damn her. Then whatever happened would be on her head!

There were two things that occupied Guido di Farbo's waking thoughts or most of them. One was women, but the other, and by far the most important, was money.

It was not a simple thing, this being an impoverished nobleman who's father had, unfortunately, been such a dyed-in-the-wool Fascist that his properties had been confiscated by the Badoglio government after the war.

It was not a simple thing to live, when the only capital remaining to you was a legitimate, but discredited, title.

Especially when you had a taste only for the best, as di Farbo had. The best in wines and champagne, the best in suits and shoes, the best in automobiles, and the best in women. It was right to want the best but when you did, a great deal, an incredible amount, of money was necessary to satisfy your wants.

Fortunately, he had soon learned that he was able to get enough for his needs from women. Not all the time, of course; there were dark, lean periods. But there were bright ones, too, when some stupid American or German female with more equity in a profitable company than wits, more cash than looks, would shell out freely for the privilege of having the suave, not unhandsome count as her lover. But it was a precarious kind of life, this being a free-lance fortune hunter, and he was not growing any younger. Two years ago it had seemed necessary to him, even urgent, to conclude a highly profitable marriage with someone.

He had been almost incredulous at his good fortune when Marion Vail had crossed his path and had become infatuated with him. She was then young, beautiful, and vivacious. And who hadn't heard of the immensity of the Vail fortune, who was unaware of the wealth in black gold that daily spouted from the ground to pile loot in the Vail coffers?

Deliberately, da Farbo had swept Marion off her feet. Whisked her into an impetuous marriage.

And then, inside, had turned cold, savage, and bitter when he learned that though he had married Marion, it was Barbara who had the money.

And who called the tune.

And who, thoroughly understanding what he had done, took a sadistic delight in making him dance to it.

But, he told himself now, every dog had its day. And there was one thing Barbara overlooked in her sadistic cat-and-mouse play with him, now turning loose of a staggering sum, then suddenly cutting off the flow completely just as he had gained confidence and gambled a little more carelessly than perhaps he should have, or spent a trifle too freely. And the one thing she had overlooked was important.

There was, flowing through the di Farbo veins, a considerable portion of Medici blood.

And, thought Guido di Farbo grimly, she had pushed him too far, now, and she would learn what Medici blood could do. Her sexing might be over.

This stupid, inconvenient, dangerous safari.

A great many things could happen on such an expedition.

And anything that happened to Barbara would redound immediately to his benefit, for if Barbara died, Marion would come into control of the family fortune. And he was Marion's husband and-

Yes, the time had come to act.

Perhaps her decision to make the safari was a stroke of luck after all.

Smiling, grimly pleased with himself, he crushed out his cigarette. Then he rolled back into his bed and pulled the covers over him. He snapped off the lamp and was soon sound asleep.

Marion lay with her head dee" in her pillow. Her husband's restlessness had wakened her, but she had given no sign of wakefulness, had feigned sleep while, obviously agitated, he smoked on the edge of the bed.

Now that the room was dark again, her body relaxed a little, but not much. She generally was tense these days. There were several things on her mind that she could not seem to get rid of.

One was the fact that she loved her husband. And knew, with cold perception, that he did not love her. Only her money, and occasionally her body.

The second was that she had endured all the humiliation from Barbara she could take. Barbara was deliberately trying to drive Guido from her, and she did not think she could live without him. At least she did not want to try.

But the thread that linked Guido to her was growing more and more tenuous. Not only could she not hold him with money, there was no chance any more of holding him with her looks.

Because Barbara was deliberately ruining Marion's looks.

Oh, it was being done subtly. But Marion was aware of it, she knew it was happening. And she knew why.

Barbara couldn't stand having anyone younger and more beautiful than herself around. Especially Marion, for they were so much alike that the contrast was marked. People laughed at Barbara's ridiculous, cow-like bosom behind her back, but they admired the suave proportions of Marion's breasts. People had always, until a few months ago, looked at the sisters together, and though Marion was quiet and Barbara was seductive and vivacious and overshadowing, had known which sister was the fresher, younger, and more beautiful.

But that had changed in these past few months.

Barbara had dragged them from pillow to post on a wild schedule. Had forced them to do things that shivered them with fear. Had, through the leverage given her by the money, imposed on them her own hectic schedule.

Barbara thrived on such a schedule, bloomed on it. But exactly the reverse was true of Marion. It drained her of all energy just trying to keep up with Barbara but, sadistically, Barbara would not let her lag. It was do what Barbara said or else. This safari was a case in point. Barbara, the outdoor type, would blossom in the sun and weather and be at ease in the jungle. She, Marion, would turn leathery under the elements and stay so frightened that she would probably be a gibbering idiot before it was all over. She had aged five years in the past twelve months. She would probably age another five on the safari, and then Barbara could rest secure, no longer fearing comparison with her younger sister's' beauty.

Marion clutched the sheet in an agony of frustration, then she thought a thought that was new to her and that at first filled her with horror.

If only something would happen to Barbara on this trip.

At first revulsion at her own depravity in wishing such a thing shook her body and made her stir restlessly. But the thought would not leave her mind. The longer it lingered, the less horrible and depraved it seemed. Her breasts stopped shivering.

If only something dreadful would happen to Barbara. If a lion would eat her or an elephant squash her or a native spear her...

But, of course, nothing like that would happen.

Nothing ever did. Not to Barbara.

Unless ...

Marion's hands relaxed on the sheet, and it slid out from under her clawed fingers.

Pleased by the enormity of what she was thinking, she smiled into the darkness.

If nothing happened, perhaps ... perhaps something could be made to happen!

It was a comforting thought, and it was still with her when at last she went to sleep.

CHAPTER FIVE

THIS IS THE FIRST LEG OF OUR JOURNEY," PETER said without much enthusiasm in his voice. "We'll head northwest in the Land Rovers until we come to this little government installation called Ngoro. My gunbearer, Kuroso, will meet us there with the other boys and the lorries. We'll go by Land Rover and lorries until we come to this range of hills here. That's almost at the border of the Kinoro country. But in there, it's completely undeveloped, nothing but animal trails that not even the Land Rovers can get over. We'll leave the vehicles at this last station here-" he moved the pencil on the map "and walk the rest of the way."

"Walk?" di Farbo's voice was full of horror.

Kenton looked at him quizzically. "Unless you know how to fly. Without a plane, there are no landing fields in the Kinoro country."

"What about helicopters?" Barbara asked calmly. "I don't mind paying extra for helicopters."

"Sorry. You won't find a pilot who'd risk his life and his rig by taking it into the Kinoro country right now. A chopper flying over that wilderness would draw the Wild Goats like the Pied Piper drew rats. And when it set down-" He broke off. "Besides, if we walk, we'll have an escort of Chief .Daum's soldiers from the border in."

"Dirty natives," di Farbo said hoarsely, wrinkling his nose.

"But excellent fighting men," said Kenton tonelessly. "And our only protection against this secret society that would like to hack us to bits."

"Damn it, Babs, for the last time, I tell you this is insane. Utterly insane!" Di Farbo stormed the words at her, face pale. "If you want to get yourself killed, all right. But do you have to expose Marion and me and Cynthia to death, too, just to gratify some bloody whim of yours?"

Barbara, clad in a white blouse that was open far down the front to accommodate the thrust of her breasts against the too-small fabric, and shorts that fit like a second skin, ending not much farther down her thighs than a bathing suit would have, looked at him with a slow smile.

"Poor Guido," she said softly and with apparent sympathy. "Nobody's forcing you to risk your life, Guido, darling. You and Marion are quite welcome to stay behind in Nairobi."

They were standing in the Trans-African Safari Company's vehicle compound while the native boys put the finishing touches on loading the vehicles. The sun beat down on them with heat that was only a forerunner of what it would be later. The powdered dust on the compound's earth was only a fraction of the depth that would blanket the northwestern roads. Kenton had explained this to the party; nothing, though, could deter Barbara Vail. Now, at this last minute concession, di Farbo's explosive breath of relief could be heard all across the yard.

"At last, Babs," he said with a fervor of relaxation. "Finally you've decided to be human."

"Oh, I'm very human. I have nothing at all against you three remaining behind." Her smile faded and she shrugged carelessly. "Of course, I'm not going to sign any more checks until I come back. I imagine you'll be rather hungry by then."

She smiled sweetly into di Farbo's face and watched it work convulsively. Then he whirled and strode across the compound and got savagely into one of the Land Rovers.

Kenton sighed as the others followed suit, with the exception of Barbara. "Why do you always have to bait them, Barbara?" he asked. "I wish you wouldn't. It's going to be an unhappy enough camp as it is. Please don't turn it into a powder keg."

She tapped his elbow. "But I like powder kegs, darling. You're a powder kegs, and I like you. I want you to explode in me again sometime soon. Now, aren't we about ready to go?"

"We're about ready."

Crisp came out at that moment, saw them, and crossed to them. He patted Barbara's shoulder. "Good hunting, Miss Vail."

"Thank you. I'm sure, under Mr. Kenton's supervision, it will be nothing but the best."

Crisp's eyes shuttled to lock with Kenton's. He jerked, his head and moved a little to one side.

"I've just had a message from one of the frontier posts," he said in a whisper. "The Wild Goats have broken out. They crossed out of Daum's country last night and attacked a settler's farm on the other side of the hills. It's very much the way the Mau-Mau used to be. The settler's son got away, badly wounded, and described it. They cut his father into ground meat with their pangas, then they raped his mother and his sister. The whole crew, twenty-five of them, one after the other. After that, they killed the women." His face was serious. "Maybe I've made a mistake, Peter. Maybe you shouldn't go in there just now. The hunting concession's not worth it."

Kenton shook his head. "It's too late to back out now. Besides, we'll be all right with Daum's escort meeting us. If it weren't for Kuroso you couldn't get me in there with a ten-ton lorry, but I'm not afraid. After all, Daum's my friend. We'll be all right."

"I hope so," Crisp said. "I've certainly had qualms. I didn't realize how bad it really was until this."

"Well, the fat's in the fire now We'll just have to go ahead and fish it out as best we can. Now ... it's time for our departure."

Crisp clapped Kenton on the shoulder. His voice was touched with genuine emotion. "Good luck, boy."

"Thanks." Kenton took Crisp's hand and shook it. Then he grinned. "Don't worry. If I don't come back, don't blame it on the secret society. Blame it on the women. So long, sir." He turned and strode toward the lead vehicle.

Once seated behind the wheel, he looked out behind him. Drobo, another trusted native, was driving the second Land Rover. One lorry with a few more boys and camping gear enough for two nights would follow them.

"Well," Kenton said, as much to himself as to anyone else, "here goes nothing." He looked at Barbara in the front seat beside him and smiled at her. She smiled back, utterly confident. Then he started the engine and led the caravan out.

For the first sixty miles they had an excellent road. The native villages were well-kept and comparatively clean, and there were Indian trading stores at frequent intervals. No game was seen, except once when a small herd of gazelles bounded across the road.

"Humph," Barbara said. "So this is darkest Africa."

"It's darker than you think," Kenton said, keeping his eyes on the road. "Independence has stirred up a dozen tribal wars in all parts of the continent. There's a veneer of civilization here, but there's still a great deal of country where spear and shield and poisoned arrow rule supreme. Just because you haven't seen a zebra stampede like in the cinema, or a lion hasn't tried to maul the vehicle..."

"I'm disappointed in it just the same," Barbara said. "Frankly, I think the whole thing's a fraud. I don't believe there is any darkest Africa left."

"Then keep your eyes open," Kenton said. "Because here's where we turn off the pavement." He swung the wheel, and they bounced from pavement onto a narrow, rutted track that slammed the running gear of the Rover savagely. "Whoops!" Barbara squealed, hanging on, breasts swinging.

"You'll get used to it," Kenton yelled and gunned the engine. The Rover shot ahead like a coursing cheetah, boiling up a huge cloud of dust behind it.

Kenton watched Barbara out of the corner of his eye with a kind of grim satisfaction. She needed a good shaking up, let her have one.

After a while, the track smoothed out a bit. Now they were on a vast, open plain, dotted with trees and clumps of thorn. "We'll see game before long now," said Kenton.

His words were proved correct almost before they were uttered. "Look!" Barbara squealed. "Look buffalo!" She bounced on her buttocks.

Kenton then laughed. "Not buffalo wildebeest, Gnu."

"Stop the car!" Barbara commanded. "Stop it, I tell you. I never saw such a herd of animals. Why, I can pick off three or four from right here."

"Yes," said Kenton, a new tone coming into his voice. "Yes, you could, couldn't you? But what would be the use? The natives make fly whisks out of their tails they're fit for nothing else."

"But-but-"

"You'll see plenty of game, Barbara. Nothing like it used to be in the old days, but more than you ever saw before in your life. But we shoot only for two reasons, Miss Vail, and you'd better understand that clearly. One is when we see a genuine trophy head. The other is when we need meat for the boys or animal baits. No one on a safari of mine kills uselessly and wastefully. I'll stand for a lot of things, but not for that." He made no attempt to slow down as they passed the grazing beasts, used by now to automobiles.

As they wound deeper into the plain, the game became more thickly spread. They saw zebra, several kinds of gazelle and antelope, and once, in the distance, the towering necks and heads of giraffes, rocking away at a steady pace, fleeing from the caravan.

Each time they saw something new, Barbara screamed for Kenton to stop the procession and let her shoot. Overwhelmed by the profusion of game, she seemed lusting to kill it all. Kenton never slowed down.

Then, as it began to cool off slightly and the sun heeled over and downward, Kenton said, "We should reach Kaloola in another half hour."

"Kaloola? What's that?"

"Where we'll spend the night. Government rest huts. This is a fairly well-traveled track for safaris, and the rest huts are to break the newcomers in easily. I imagine there'll be a game ranger there to greet us."

"Oh," Barbara said with a touch of sulkiness, "I thought we'd camp."

"Tomorrow night. You'll have plenty of sleeping in the open before you're through."

Before it was dark, a scattering of huts loomed in the distance, low, mudwalled structures with thatched roofs. Kenton drew the lead Rover up in front of the largest one. "Well, this is where we'll spend the night." He leaned on the klaxon. "Odd," he said, "I rather expected Jervis, the game ranger for this district, to be here." He shrugged. "Well, I expect he's been called away." He swung out and helped Barbara dismount.

The second Rover pulled in behind them. Kenton went to it and smiled at Cynthia Blake, Count di Farbo, and Marion. "Well, did you enjoy the ride?"

Di Farbo got out stiffly, his face coated with dust, except a white area around his eyes where he had worn sunglasses. "I've never had such an execrable experience," he said thinly, his eyes flashing anger at Barbara.

"It'll do you good, Guido. Make a man out of you," she said carelessly.

Kenton noticed Cynthia Blake staring at him rather strangely. She wore a khaki blouse and stretch slacks and boots. He observed for the first time that she had really good legs and hips, a nicely modeled, pleasantly round rear. When he smiled at her, he was startled to see how her face lit up.

"I hope it wasn't too rough on you," he said.

"Oh, no." Her eyes, he saw, were gray; much larger than he had at first thought. "No, it was fascinating. All those animals. The American West where I was brought up must have looked like that once."

Barbara deliberately moved forward and between Cynthia and Kenton. "Cynthia," she ordered crisply, "get my personal kit out of the car, please, and bring it inside. I'll want to bathe and change."

The smile faded from Cynthia's face. "Yes, Miss Vail."

Barbara looked at Kenton. "Can a girl get a drink around here?"

"Oh, yes. I'll have a bar set up. One thing we always bring is plenty of booze." He snapped orders in Swahili to the natives, and they leaped to work, busily unloading the vehicles. "Well, come on," Kenton said, "and I'll show you your new home."

Later, after a good dinner, they sat in the common room of the main rest hut. Around it, radiating off like spokes from a hub, were small cubicles containing the wire frames of bunks, across which blankets or mattresses had been thrown. Kenton talked brightly, having to carry most of the burden of conversation. Barbara, he saw, was drinking heavily. She seemed to have turned sullen about something and was not talking much.

Only Cynthia, who drank hardly at all, had anything of consequence to say in response to Kenton's bright, professional chatter. She asked intelligent questions about game and hunting that surprised him and which he took pleasure in answering.

Barbara listened to their interchange for a while, and her face went cold. "Cynthia," she said harshly, "go make up my bed."

Kenton saw all the animation die out of Cynthia's face. "Yes, Miss Vail," she said tonelessly.

Barbara looked at Cynthia with a lust which Kenton found odd. "And take the room next to mine. I may want you in the night."

Kenton saw Cynthia suck in a deep breath and her hands clench and unclench. "Yes, Miss Vail," Cynthia said again in a dead voice and arose from the table.

Outside, not far away, there was a sudden, spine-chilling roar, ending in a grunting cough. Di Farbo jumped straight up, his face going as pale as tissue paper. "My God!" he yelped, "what's that?"

"Lion," Kenton said. "Don't worry. He wouldn't come inside the boma, the fence, even if he could. He's out for zebra, or perhaps antelope."

Di Farbo's hands shook. "I don't believe you. We'll be eaten alive."

"Oh," said Barbara wearily, "don't be a fool, Guido." She looked at Kenton. "I've never heard a lion roar before," she said. "Take me outside where I can hear it better, will you?"

"Very well." Kenton stood up.

He and Barbara stepped out into an immensity of night. Again the coughing roar shattered the silence, farther in the distance this time. Under an opened-front shed, the native boys were already asleep.

Barbara took Kenton's arm, then his hand, and as they walked along the perimeter of the wooden stockade that surrounded the station, she pressed the back of his hand against one great, soft breast. Kenton felt the nipple, hard and taut, through the fabric. He was aware of a quick, strong stir within him at the touch of her flesh.

Her fingers traced little circles in his palm. "Except for that first day," she said, "you never came back to me in Nairobi."

"I had a great deal to attend to in order to get this show on the road properly."

"You had a woman," she accused. "That's what you had."

He nodded. "All right. I had a woman."

There was more pressure against his hand now. He felt Barbara's hip brushing his thigh as they walked.

"She's not here now," she said.

They had halted in a shadow at the rear of the main hut. Suddenly Barbara slid his hand into her blouse. He felt the pleasant billows where her breasts crowded upward above the top of her bra. He swallowed hard, completely aroused now.

"That's right," he said hoarsely, "she isn't."

Then Barbara was rightly against him, shoving those hard nipples against his chest, her arms about him, her face upturned. He kissed her. The length of her tongue, soft and wet, leaped to his mouth and fenced with his. Her lower body shoved against him tightly, hot through the corduroy skirt.

Kenton let his hand slip down her back and over the curve of buttock. Then he was lifting the skirt, finding that she wore nothing under it, and cupping one soft, heavy mound there in his hard palm, squeezing and caressing it.

That seemed to drive her wild. She wrenched her mouth away. Her hand fumbled with his clothes.

"Oh," she whimpered, "so good."

Then she had him free. And suddenly she was climbing him, her body thrown upward, legs clamped around his torso, mouth seeking his again.

He got his hands under her buttocks to help support her. Considering the position, they started with amazing ease. Again there was that fantastic vibration in her body that maddened him. His fingers clamped in the soft flesh of her buttocks, thrust her against him.

"Oh," she whimpered, "oh, yes. Yes." And then, as his body moved faster and faster, she began to curse. He had heard women curse before, in anger and in passion, but he had never heard anyone curse as she did, spewing oaths in a crazy, helpless daze of sexual ecstasy. She knew all the gutter words of America and England; she knew gutter words in French and German. She said them all into his ear. Telling him what to do to her. Urging him on. He found it immensely exciting.

Then something within him was building to a crescendo. He had her pinned against the building now, her back abraded against the hard mud. He made a last, terrific drive. She squealed, a thin, high shriek, formless. Her heels drummed against his buttocks. And he kept her there against the wall, like a butterfly, for long moments, while she suffered the agonies of a finish that seemed to rack every nerve of her body. At last she relaxed, her head lolled, her mouth came away from his, and he could hear her rasping breathing.

"God," she whimpered, "that was even better than the last time."

"Yes," said Kenton breathlessly, and he lowered her gently to the ground.

"Now," he said easily, "I think we'd better go in."

"Yes," Barbara said shakily. "Yes. After that, I need a drink."

They went around the corner of the building, toward the front door.

Inside, in the darkened cubicle where she was adding the finishing touches to Barbara's bed, Cynthia put her hands over her eyes, and her shoulders trembled. But she did not cry. Even though she had heard it all through the open window, she did not cry.

All she did was think, very wearily, What's the use!

CHAPTER SIX

THEY GOT AN EARLY START THE NEXT MORNING, AND made an early camp the next afternoon, in a level stretch of plain shaded by a grove of trees. The newcomers were surprised by the sped and efficiency with which the boys put up tents, cooked a meal, and served drinks. Even di Farbo relaxed a little. "Why, this isn't quite as bad as I expected."

"Anybody who can sleep with Marion," said Barbara easily, "should be able to sleep anywhere."

Kenton did not miss the look of naked hatred her sister flung at Barbara then.

He stepped into the middle of it easily, suavely trying to break up the impending unpleasantness.

"There's a waterhole near here, and it's time for the animals to begin coming to drink. I have an old blind there, if anyone would like to come down with me and see the show."

To his surprise, Barbara did not move. "I'm tired," she said, stretching long, bare legs. "I'm not going anywhere until I've had two more drinks?"

Cynthia stood up. "I'd like to go."

Barbara did not even lift her eyes.

"No," she said harshly.

Kenton felt a little ripple of anger, especially at the way the look of eagerness died on Cynthia's face.

"Please, Miss Vail." Cynthia's voice was pathetic. "Please let me go."

"I said no," Barbara repeated, without even the grace to look up. She took a swallow of her drink.

Kenton's resentment quite matched the look that crossed Cynthia's face. He said harshly, "Come off it, Barbara." And then, quite deliberately, he took Cynthia's arm.

"We'll be back in a hour," he said.

Barbara sat bolt upright. For a moment, Kenton thought she was going to spring to her feet and follow them, then she relaxed, shrugging. A strange smile crossed her face. "Sure, go ahead. Fat lot of good it'll do you." She began to sing softly: "If you knew Cynthia, like I know Cynthia "

Kenton shrugged. It made no sense to him, but then, Barbara was beginning to make less and less sense in general. He put her out of his mind and focused his attention on Cynthia as they walked down an almost indiscernible track together.

"If the wind's right," he said, "we ought to have a good show." His hand caressed the strap of the rifle slung over his shoulder. "But I confess, I feel rather naked without Kuroso. He's my gunbearer, you know."

Cynthia nodded. "Yes, I know." She looked at the expanse of distance that surrounded them, the sky lit with a wild explosion of chromatics painted there by sunset. "I had almost forgotten country like this existed," she murmured. Then she tripped, almost fell.

Kenton caught her arm. "Careful, there."

She laughed. It was the first time he had heard the sound. Rather pleasant, too, he thought. "I should have been watching the ground instead of the sky."

"The sky's worth watching," he said, and they walked along in silence for a few moments. He still held her arm; he found himself strangely reluctant to turn it loose.

"How long have you been working for Barbara?" he asked at last, more to break the silence than out of curiosity. v

"Too long," she said, in a voice that was oddly sad. Then she shuddered. "Let's not talk about her, do you mind?"

"Of course not. I should have known better anyhow. One doesn't take a woman for a walk and talk about another woman to her." He smiled at her. "Does one?"

"I don't know," she said, her breasts tingling. "Oh, surely you've been for walks with dozens of men."

"No, Not with very many."

"Where you come from, the men must be exceptionally dull and stupid, then."

"Please," she said, with a touch of pain in her voice that puzzled him. "Please, tell me about the water-hole. Let's talk about that."

"Well, it's not very big, but it's the only one in this region. There is really a sort of guarded truce there, strange as it may sound. Not that the animals ever really ease off with their caution, but they do seem to relax more at the waterhole. Coming to drink seems to be their big event of the day."

They were moving downhill now. Ahead of them could be seen the bright green seam of a water-course, ending in a green bowl surrounded by trees. From the green bowl, which was a small, lush valley, game trails radiated out like the spokes of a wheel, hard-packed by the impressions of millions of hooves.

"You know all about Africa, don't you?" Cynthia asked, impressed.

"No. No one knows all about Africa. It's too big. like your North American continent. Nobody can say he knows it all. One can say he knows Europe intimately, it's possible for one person to live in each of the major areas long enough, but not in Africa. East Africa, here, is quite different from, say, the Republic of South Africa. The Rhodesias are different from both, the Congo is another kettle entirely, and the western coast is different from all. What people don't seem to realize is that the tribes are different, too. They say, Africa for the Africans. But there are no longer any really large tribes that are cohesive units here. So when Africa becomes for the Africans, what really happens is that it's divided into dozens and dozens of tiny sub-countries, each under the domination of its own tribe. Geographical boundaries can be drawn, yes, but without the glue of strong central governments within those boundaries, they aren't going to mean a thing beyond what the individual tribal leaders want them to mean. That's why I have to go to the Kinoro country. It's slated to become part of the new republic of Ruguana. But it doesn't want to be part of Ruguana and threatens civil war. In the meantime, the Wild Goats take advantage of the general turmoil to strengthen themselves. Normally Trans-African doesn't mix in politics, but our hunting rights in the Kinoro country are immensely valuable to us. So I'm to negotiate for their protection." He squeezed her arm. "That's enough about politics, or anything else for that matter. Now we must be very, very silent and hope the wind stays in the right direction."

He led her down one of the game trails to the green bowl of foliage that surrounded a reed-edged pond perhaps a hundred feet in diameter. On a slope not far back from the pond's edge was what at first appeared to be part of the brush but, on closer inspection, turned out to be the blind Kenton had been aiming for. It was built of stones and logs and thatched with brush, more or less of a permanent nature, and it had been here for so long that the animals were completely used to it. There was just room inside it for two people to sit close together. It was quite hot in the little structure, not much larger than a dog house. But from its front and sides, where apertures had been made in the reed thatching, a good view could be had of the waterhole.

They settled so close together that their bodies touched. Kenton sighed and relaxed, preparing himself for the long wait he knew was coming. He was acutely aware that Cynthia wore a gentle perfume not the harsh, erotic musk favored by Barbara, but a light, feminine flower fragrance. It stirred him oddly, even more than Barbara's. He frowned as he pondered this phenomenon in the silence that followed. It was his nature to be attracted to highly-charged, highly-sexed women. Cynthia certainly didn't come into that category, and there was no real reason why he should be interested in her when he had a sexpot like Barbara ready to flop on her back at his least touch. Yet Cynthia gripped his arm, pointed wordlessly. As if by some tacit agreement, the animals had begun to come.

First there were the eland, large-horned and impressive, heads high and great eyes alert. Zebra began to drift in, and impala. Thompson's gazelles came daintily to drink beside their larger cousins. They all made room for an evil-eyed, shambling rhinoceros which appeared on the far side of the waterhole, snorted gustily, and stood for a moment with its massive head swaying. Instinctively, Kenton's grip tightened on his rifle. A rhinoceros was virtually blind, but it had a keen sense of smell, and a rhino was completely unpredictable. If it scented them, things might be a bit sticky

But the rhino drank and then lay down in the mud and wallowed, issuing pig-like grunts of satisfaction, rolling and kicking its big feet high. Kenton stole a glance at Cynthia. She was transfixed with interest and excitement, her eyes wide, her mouth open. At the rhino's antics, she smiled like a delighted child, and for a moment Kenton was afraid she would giggle.

But she didn't, and at last the rhino heaved to its feet, drank again, and lumbered off. It was getting darker now. Shadows fell about the water hole, and each shadow seemed to be alive. The animals were more nervous now; they tested the air more frequently.

Then Kenton touched Cynthia's arm.

One of the shadows had moved in such a way to catch his eye. He knew that at first Cynthia would be able to see nothing, but if she watched, very closely, perhaps after a moment she might perceive the leopard.

It was crouched on their side of the waterhole, not far from the blind. It seemed to have come from nowhere, and its body flowed within its loose, rosetted skin as it moved forward inch by inch, only the long tail, which twitched nervously, really seeming to have any life.

A herd of Tommies drifted along the rim of the pond. The wind was from them to the leopard. A screen of reeds shielded the predator from their view. Kenton felt Cynthia's hand tighten on his knee with tension as she watched the drama about to unfold. Saw the leopard tense itself, unsheathe its claws. The gazelles came nearer; now they were within three bounds of the leopard, now two; now he could leap from where he was at the one in the lead. The coiled-spring body poised itself...

A voice, a woman's voice rang in bawdy drunkenness through the quiet of the evening. "Roll me over ... in the clover . . "

As if by magic, the gazelles disappeared. In a series of fantastic bounds, they vanished like mist. So did the other animals about the waterhole, in an excited volley of snorts and a drumming of hooves. Kenton cursed silently, as the leopard, thwarted, swung its head, snarled, and suddenly flowed out of sight into the reeds.

"Roll me over-"

"Barbara!" Kenton rasped. "The damned fool! She's drunk. Come on, Cynthia!" He yanked her to her feet and shoved her out of the blind and quickly followed her, working the bolt on his rifle. There was a leopard out there in the brush somewhere, a drunken woman coming down the trail, and it was getting dark. The leopard was thwarted and in a savage mood. It was a perfect setup for trouble.

"Now this is number two "

Up the trail, Kenton could see the white blot of Barbara's blouse standing out in the dusk. "Barbara!" he yelled. "Go back! There's a leopard between us! Go back, Barbara! You're in danger!"

"Roll me over "

"Barbara, damn it "

"Oh, this is number three "

Kenton seized Cynthia's wrist. "Stay close to me," he grated. "Come on." Leading her, he hurried up the path toward Barbara.

Now he could see that she was unarmed, except for a bottle in one hand. She lurched and staggered as she came down the trail. Kenton could only hope that the bawdy loudness of her singing had frightened the leopard away. Leopards were dangerous, much more so than lions. Leopards were skulkers and takers-by-surprise, and their tempers burned with a short fuse. Barbara's bellowing had just deprived this one of his prey, and it was quite possible that, circling in the brush, it might decide, especially if hungry, to spring on anything that moved out of sheer savagery.

Now Barbara was only a couple of hundred feet away. Her bright blonde hair stood out in the dusk as specifically as her blouse. She halted, swaying unsteadily, put the bottle to her mouth and drank long and deep, breasts swaying.

And then she gave a gargling scream with her mouth full of whiskey.

The leopard had oozed smoothly oat of the brush between Barbara and Kenton. For one almost imperceptible fraction of a second it crouched in the trail, setting its muscles for a leap.

Then it launched, straight for the blonde woman, a powerful rocket of spotted fur. Kenton raised his gun and fired.

There was another scream, but no human throat could have been capable of it. The leopard, just off the ground, was knocked sideways as if brushed by a mighty hand. It landed on its back, and its paws raked the air, unsheathed talons gleaming, and it went on screaming horribly as Barbara, only a few feet away, stared at it dumbly.

"Stand fast!" Kenton yelled and fired again. The tfnonnk of the bullet into flesh was clearly audible, and the leopard's screaming stopped. All at once the utter' silence of the night was like a shriek itself, so tangible had it become.

Kenton threw another round into the chamber. "Come on," he snapped, and he and Cynthia ran toward Barbara. She was swaying in the middle of the path, the bottle dangling from her hand, staring at the dead leopard with eyes glazed and stupid from too much whiskey.

"I be damned," she was muttering over and over. "Well, I just be damned..."

Kenton, in a fury now, came up to her and jerked her around by the shoulder. "You damned fool!" he lashed out. "Haven't you got any better sense than to come blundering into a water hole in the darkness drunk?"

Barbara looked up at him defiantly. "Take your cotton-pickin' hands off me, friend."

Instead, Kenton shook her savagely. "I ought to tan your bottom for you!" He shoved her away brutally and looked down at the dead leopard, not the length of its own body away from where she stood. "If I'd missed," he said, "you wouldn't have had to worry about the leopard. The bullet would have got you."

"Well," Barbara grated blurrily, "that would have been convenient for everybody wouldn't it? Too bad you shoot so straight, Wild Bill Hickok..."

She clawed at Kenton's shirt. "Mader fact, I just come down to see what kinda time you makin' with my li'l friend Cynthia. She'sh not as easy to put the make on as me, is she, Wild Bill? I mean, you know, it'sh kinda hard to make time with a-"

"Miss Vail!" Cynthia cried in a despairing voice.

Barbara looked at her a moment and grinned twistedly. "Come on," she said. "Come on, Cynthia. Less go back to my tent." She took Cynthia's hand.

Cynthia held back. "No," she said. "No, please."

"Come on!" Barbara snapped the order and dragged her with surprising strength.

"Wait a minute," Kenton grated, sudden anger at this mal-treatment of Cynthia rising in him. "Turn her loose, Babs."

"No," said Barbara thickly. "No, I need her. Wanta show you sumpin, friend. Wanta show you why you better stick to ole tried and true, easy-lay me and leave the little sparrow here alone. Wanta show you why you been was tin' your time. Come on, Cynthia."

Cynthia looked despairingly at Kenton. Then her body seemed to slump with resignation. "All right," she said in a nearly inaudible whisper, and she moved along behind Barbara meekly as they went up the hill together.

When they reached the camp, the other members of the party seemed to have sealed themselves within their tent. But there was still whiskey set out on the camp table. Barbara let go of Cynthia and lurched to the table and poured two chinks.

"Here," she said, holding them out to Kenton and Cynthia. Kenton took his and snapped orders to his native skinner, who had come up inquiringly, having heard the shot. The native nodded and faded into the night and the three of them were alone around the camp table now.

"Here's to Wild Bill Hickok," Barbara said, holding her glass aloft. "He's a dead shot, at everything but judgin' women." She tossed off her drink. Kenton drank his, needing it. He stared at Cynthia. She seemed to be in greater terror now than when the leopard had charged. He touched her shoulder, thinking that reaction from the incident had set in.

"Go ahead, drink it," he said softly. "It will do you good."

Cynthia's breasts rose and fell under her blouse. "Yes," she said tonelessly, "you're right. I suppose it will do me good." She drank, tossing the whiskey down with surprising suddenness. "Yes, it will do me good, all right. It's just what I needed." She reached for the bottle and poured another one and downed that too with the same decisive quickness.

Kenton frowned, this was a side of Cynthia he bad not seen before. But he kept silent as she poured a third drink and consumed it more slowly.

A shudder rippled over her body.

"Now," she said hoarsely. Her eyes glittered strangely. "Now I'm ready for anything."

Barbara swayed toward Kenton, and he felt the erect tips of her breasts brush his arm. "Cm'on," she said thickly. "Come to my tent. I wanta show you sumpin." She took first his hand, then Cynthia's. She laughed; it was not, for Kenton, a pleasant sound to hear.

Cynthia seemed to go willingly enough now. The whiskey had apparently gotten to her quickly. She was humming softly, in a bitter tone, "Roll me over. ... "

They entered the big wall tent, in which had been set up two cots, one for Cynthia, one for Barbara. A gasoline lantern burned on a small table, providing plenty of illumination. Swaying, Barbara gestured toward one of the cots. "Sit there," she commanded Kenton.

Wonderingly, he sat. Barbara went to the tent flap and zipped the tent shut. Cynthia leaned on the table. She had found another bottle of whiskey, or perhaps had snatched it without being noticed from the table out front. Much as Barbara had done, she now put the open neck of it to her mouth and drank deeply. She gagged and made a face. Then she passed the bottle to Kenton. "Drink," she said huskily. "You'll need it with what you're about to see. I know what's gonna happen, you understand? Miss Vail's gon' teach you a lesson. Gon' teach both us a lesson. Teach you I'm hopeless. Teach me I'm hopeless too." She laughed. "Funny thing is, don' know whether I'm hopeless or not. Maybe found out not hopeless too late. Nobody but you, understand?"

He did not. He could not make head nor tail out of what she was saying. But Barbara moved, imperiously, between Cynthia and himself. The light of the gasoline lantern cast shadows under the huge outjut of her breasts beneath the tight blouse. She looked at Cynthia. "Undress me," she said in a commanding voice.

"Yes, Miss Vail." With an effort, Cynthia straightened up. Her face was impassive now. "Yes, I'll do that."

She put her hands to the top of Barbara's blouse and began to unbutton it. Kenton clutched the whiskey bottle and edged forward on the cot, watching closely. Watching Cynthia's hands. A trained observer, he had already spotted the way they moved when Cynthia toyed with the buttons. Not concentrating on the buttons. But seizing the opportunity to play across the rounded fullness of those huge breasts. A sickness began to grow in him.

Then the blouse was open. Kenton could see the rolling softnesses too much for the bra to contain, an amplitude of flesh that overflowed the tops of the cups. His hands twitched with a desire to touch that milky lusciousness. But it was Cynthia's hands that, hesitant at first, then bold, played across the tempting whiteness. Touching the flesh lightly. Kenton could see Cynthia's eyes, see that they were glittering in the light of the lamp, see that Cynthia was breathing hard, her lips parted.

Barbara stood like a marble statue as Cynthia finally peeled the blouse away.

Then it was necessary for Cynthia to go behind Barbara and unfasten the bra.

She performed the feat deftly, and Kenton tensed as the huge, white mounds leaped into freedom, their big red tips thrusting forward eagerly.

He heard Cynthia's breath go out in a gusty sigh.

Kenton was both sick with revulsion and yet strangely, perversely, excited. He thought he knew what was going to happen, and it was something he had never witnessed. He did not want to see it, yet he could not have left the tent if his life had depended on it.

Suddenly Cynthia was kissing the smoothness of Barbara's back. Her hands had gone around Barbara and were cupping, squeezing, kneading, the flesh of Barbara's breasts.

Cynthia's lips traveled hungrily all the way down Barbara's back until they were balked by the waistband of the skirt.

Cynthia stuck out her tongue. Kenton saw her drag it slowly up the dent in Barbara's back where the spinal cord was. He saw Barbara shiver. He saw Cynthia's hands clamp more deeply into the flesh of Barbara's breasts.

Then Cynthia's right hand came away. Dropped to the fastening of the skirt. She fumbled with it, got it open. It was a tight squeeze, but, instead of pulling it over Barbara's head, Cynthia pulled it down around the swelling flare of Barbara's hips.

Barbara was now naked except for the glimmering fabric of sheer panties that sheathed her buttocks and boots and socks. The boots were high ones that came to Barbara's knees, built with special heels and special styling so that they hardly resembled hunting boots. Kenton doubted that Cynthia, in her present mood, would bother with them. He was right.

Cynthia's hands latched in the waistband of Barbara's panties. She peeled them down, and Barbara stepped out of the puddle of fabric that was the skirt and panties.

Still, Cynthia was behind Barbara. She began to kiss Barbara's back again. Now there was nothing to balk her. Her tongue and lips traced hungry lines down across the roundness of Barbara's buttocks.

Barbara stood as if modeled from ivory.

Cynthia dropped to her knees. Kissed the soft flesh directly under the buttocks, traced her mouth down the backs of Barbara's thighs, Barbara stood trembling.

Suddenly, she wrenched away from Cynthia. She sat down on the cot opposite Kenton. Her booted legs moved apart.

"Cynthia." It had the sound of a royal command.

Cynthia scrabbled forward on her knees. She braced her hands on the tops of Barbara's white thighs, the fingers digging into milky flesh. Then her hands roved down Barbara's legs, even caressing the hard leather of the boots.

Barbara dropped backward on the cot. Her thighs, knees, and calves were still bent over the edge, feet firmly planted on the ground.

Cynthia moved between the high boots.

She seized the leathern ankles and moved them aside.

Then she bent her head.

Barbara made a hissing sound. It was like steam escaping from a valve.

Then, for a moment, the tent was utterly silent, except for the indescribable sounds that Cynthia made.

Barbara gave that hiss again. One hand seized the back of Cynthia's head and pressed it hard against her. The other was clenching and unclenching.

"Kenton," Barbara said hoarsely. "Kenton. Over here." The tips of her booted feet were barely touching the floor, now. Suddenly she clamped the boots around Cynthia's back. Kenton saw the specially built high heels dig into Cynthia's flesh.

He himself was wildly aroused. This scene was as he had expected.

But its effect on him was totally unexpected.

Without volition, as if lifted by a huge hand, he moved across the tent, his fingers unlatching belt and buttons.

Then, without any word spoken, he was kneeling on the cot beside Barbara.

She craned her neck, raised her head. She guided him with a hand.

Kenton closed his eyes.

The sounds Cynthia was making went on and on. Barbara began to make sounds, too. The sounds mingled.

As Barbara's sharp nails dug into his buttocks, all Kenton could do was lean forward and kiss Barbara's breasts.

The fuel in the lamp ran low. The lamp flickered, went out. Nobody noticed.

CHAPTER SEVEN

NGORO. A SCATTERING OF NATIVE HUTS WITHIN A rude, thorn boma.

In the distance, the purple hills that sealed off the country of the Kinoro from the rest of East Africa.

Dust and woodsmoke and native beer.

Kuroso, clad only in a loincloth, the sun glistening on the plated black of his great muscles, sat patiently outside the compound. His eyes watched the road not road, really, but track for dust. Bwana Kenton would be here soon.

The girl's name was Kwasai. She was still in her teens, but her breasts were already fully sprouted. In the manner of the Wanderobo, the people to whom she belonged, she was ready to mate. She had been watching Kuroso ever since he had come to the village.

She felt especially free, because the government agent, Bwana Temple, had been called back to Nairobi for an urgent conference. There was no white man to cast a fishy eye on anything she did.

She came up behind Kuroso. She put her arms around his muscle-banded chest.

In her own dialect, which Kuroso understood thoroughly, as he understood all the dialects of East Africa, she said, "My eyes have been upon you for two days. My arms ache for you."

There was no stigma attached among these people to promiscuity as long as it occurred before marriage. After marriage, for a wife was valuable property, like a cow, the penalty was death. Kuroso felt the crisp nozzles of Kwasai's breasts stroking his back.

After a while, her attentions could be endured no longer. Kuroso straightened. He said, "You have been through the rites?"

"Yes," Kwasai said.

It had been an academic question. In Africa, one could always tell when a girl had been deemed to become a woman. In some tribes, she was tattooed and, through pain, the girl had earned the right to be a woman.

Kwasai was obviously a woman, not a girl.

She kept stroking the hard points of her naked breasts back and forth along Kuroso's shoulder blades. Her hands caressed the hard pectoral muscles of his chest, slid down his belly, plunged into the tight confines of the loincloth.

"You," Kwasai said, "of the white man's service. You of the wide shoulders and the slim hips. like the buffalo bull that feeds in the valleys. You ... it is you I want."

There was nothing for it but to be rid of her.

Kuroso stood up. He pointed to a wooded draw outside the boma.

"Be there," he said, "with your covering removed, within the time that the sun has moved overhead a fraction of its travel, and I will meet you."

"Yes," said Kwasai, and she went off toward the line of trees that marked the draw. Kuroso watched her go, admiring her slender thighs, the protuberant belly, the fully developed and dangling, unhaltered breasts. She would grow into a lush woman.

He watched her go, admiring the clean way her thighs moved. They were long and slender. She would, he thought, easily bear many children.

His eyes roved around the land. To his left, there were the spreading plains, dotted with acacia and thorn-bush. To his right there were the blue and misty hills, rolling fold upon fold, unto eternity. Beyond them lay his native land, the land of the Kinoro, ruled now by Daum.

Daum, Kuroso thought, was a fool. But what could you expect, he also thought, of someone whose mother was white?

It made all the difference in the world. White was not African. Black was.

Kuroso's thick lips curled.

Well, Daum would not last a great deal longer.

Daum wanted his country to be separate, independent, from the new republic of Ruguana But even if it were, Daum would still, because he was half white, be receptive to the advice and counsel of the white men.

Kuroso screwed up his lips in an expression of distaste.

Africa was for the Africans.

And all Africans were black.

Kuroso stood up, rearing erect six feet of strong and dangerous muscle.

Kuroso was well pleased.

Daum's men would move to the border, to provide an escort for the white bwana and his party.

They would be ambushed. Wiped out. Most of Daum's prime warriors erased at a single stroke.

And the delegation that would meet the party of white people at the border would not be that of Daum. It would be a group of the Wild Goats.

Under the direction of Kuroso.

He sucked in a deep breath. His banded chest rose and fell.

He sensed his own power, which was immense.

It had not been a bad mistake to serve the white bwana. It had turned out well. Now, even though his mother had not been English, he understood the white man. He could out-think the white man. He could almost write on a chart the white man's weaknesses and the white man's strengths.

You called the white man Bwana. It meant master. And it lulled him.

You anticipated the white man's needs. You bowed to him at every possible moment. And he took you for granted. He thought he understood you.

But he didn't.

All the while, you were, inside, African. And, no matter how much you bowed to the white man, no matter how expeditiously you carried out his orders, you knew always that the difference existed between you.

You knew that he was white and you were black. And that because he was white he was a god. And because you were black, you were an underling.

Even the best white men thought of the relationship in that way. Kuroso would never forget the corrugated iron-gray head of the elephant bearing down upon him, the terror he had known, and the sudden relief of the sound of gunfire.

All he regretted about the incident was that his salvation had been white. He truly loved and admired the bwana Kenton. The Bwana Kenton had saved his life. But there was one sad factor in the equation. The Bwana Kenton was white.

He stood up, stretching in the hot, bright sunlight. He had remembered Kwasai, waiting for him down in the draw.

He walked toward the line of trees eagerly.

He had seen, often, the white women come to the house of the Bwana Kenton. Especially Hiraz. He had admired the luscious ivory hillocks of her body and had yearned after them. He had never kissed the pink nipples of a white woman or planted the spreading fingers of his palms in the resiliency of a white woman's buttocks, lifting them off the ground to consummate the fulfillment of his own lust.

It was a lack he meant to remedy.

There were three white women in the party commanded by the Bwana Kenton.

He meant to have them all, as part of the ceremonial ritual of the Wild Goats, before they were killed.

Because he was the leader of the Wild Goats.

He walked across the plain. He entered the line of trees. He plowed through a waist-high wall of brush. He heard a wild, grunting sound and moved toward it.

Kwasai lay in a clearing. Her hands were clamped around black breasts, tugging and pulling, waiting for him, her tongue lolling, clamped between her teeth.

Kuroso stood where he was for a moment, watching the dark blot of her young body writhing on the ground. Then he walked slowly toward her.

He kneeled before her, stripping down the loincloth.

"You must prepare yourself," he said, not without gentleness.

"I am prepared," she whispered. "By ritual."

It was true. Barbarous customs, not unlike those of his own country, had pared away all that was not necessary to the satisfaction of man. Kuroso looked at her and saw that.

He bent before her, on his knees.

There was no necessity to be loving. What she wanted was animal, the need of one body for another. He moved quickly

She took him. There was warmth and the urgent movement of her hips. He heard her breath go out in a rasping gasp. Her buttocks cleared the ground, grinding and seeking. Her thickened and calloused heels slammed against his back.

Kuroso worked with all his strength against the frail barrier of her small-breasted, sharp-nozzled, thin-thighed young body.

Five years from now, ten, she would be fat and a lethargic, smoky greasiness beneath him. But he had caught her now at the apex of her youthful vigor; she was all desire young hard hips lifted off the ground, breasts thrusting, legs clamping, heels pounding. Her body was convulsive beneath his.

She wailed, in a fulfillment sound.

Head thrown back, throat arched, buttocks off the ground, lack legs tightening.

Then, beginning deep below his flanks, he felt his own consummation knot itself.

Once more, with all the brutal strength within his hard-thewed body.

She mewed, arched, and fell back.

He made a gasping sound as, involuntarily, ecstasy exploded.

After that, they lay motionless in the hot sunlight that beat down through the teridoro trees.

Finally Kuroso moved aside.

He said, "You are very good. You will make some man a good wife."

"You," Kwasai said urgently. "I am young and strong. Let it be you."

"No," said Kuroso. "I have work to do."

"What kind of work?"

Kuroso rewrapped his loin cloth.

"I have a half-brother," he said bitterly. "And a half-sister. And they are half white. Together they rule my people."

His eyes glittered with fanaticism as he looked down on the naked girl.

"Half white," he said harshly, "is too much. Africa is for black people only." He raised his head, looked off at nothing in the distance.

"Once," he said, "we were supreme here. Then the whites came. First the slavers, who carried our people off. Then the imperialists, who colonized and settled and bled us. Once we ruled the land; now we are servants in it. We shall not be servants longer."

Kwasai sat up, wrapping her cloth about her exhausted hips.

"The whites," she said, "have brought many benefits, have they not? There are medicines that once a year my family is given. The diseases that used to destroy us are warded off."

"The disease that will destroy us," said Kuroso thickly, "is servitude. I know. For five years now, I have been servant to a white master. True, he saved my life. But, in turn, his life have I also saved. But never is there a point where we become equal in the eyes one of another. Never is there a point where we are one man to another. Always I am the black whom he rescued. Always he is the bwana to whom I must be eternally grateful." His lips curled.

"I have known how to wait," he said. "For five years I have waited, learning and understanding and biding my time. In the land of the Kimoro, Daum, because he is half white, is disposed to be understanding and cooperative with the whites." He raised his arms and stared at them. "But there is no white in me. In me there is only darkness and a difference. And this is my land and I shall be master in it."

The girl arose.

"I am too young to know of these things," she said, running her hands over the flaccid flesh of satisfied breasts, "and I do not understand much you have said. All I know is that from the whites to us many good things flow, and we in turn give them of what we have our labor, ivory when we are allowed to take it, the roots and herbs we gather. It seems to me that this is such a wide country that in it there must be room for all of us."

"No," said Kuroso fiercely. "There is no room but for my own people. The whites are outsiders and they must be driven out."

"Even if they bring benefits?"

"No matter what they bring," said Kuroso. He rubbed his hands together. "Soon I will lead four of them into the Kinoro country. There they will be slaughtered, whether my brother Daum-likes it or not. There will be an end to negotiations with the whites then. There will be war, on our own grounds, and we are master on those. Now I have a limited number of followers. But when my men have savored the flesh of white women and when the white men's heads are paraded on sticks, the tribes will rise. And they win rise with a single cry: Drive the white man out! And their leader shall be me-" he tapped his chest. "Me-Kuroso!"

Kwasai looked at him with eyes that were large and white.

"I tremble," she said, "because there is in your head something "

Kuroso roared at her: "Do you call me crazy?" "I only know," Kwasai whispered, "that there is yet much land and a great deal of game and the world is very wide and in it there is room for everyone the gods have made." Her voice trembled. Suddenly she turned and crashed through the bushes toward the cluster of thatched-roof shacks that was the native village.

When Kuroso emerged from the thicket, he saw in the distance across the plain the boil of dust from an oncoming caravan; he knew that this must be Kenton and the safari. Rigorously following instructions, because he did not want to excite suspicion until it was too late, Kuroso had assembled a number of bearers; there were, too, lorries parked outside the boma.

He walked across the plain toward the road with mixed emotions. There was in him already a wild and heady triumph. He knew that soon he would carry out his threat. His men of the Wild Goats would know the mysteries of the female whites and know that they were neither more nor less than those of their own women. His men would see too that the white men died like ordinary mortals, and that their heads were capable of severation and would impale on a stick like the heads of any of the black tribesmen. That would be benefit, that would be victory.

Still, he could not fight away a certain sadness that one of the paraded heads would belong to Kenton. Kenton had, in his own way, been good to him.

Kenton had saved his life.

Kenton had given him employment.

Kenton had hired Nyasa not so much to cook both he and Kuroso were excellent cooks but to give Kuroso a female companion.

It was true that Kenton was a good man.

But it was also true that Kenton was white.

And so there was no help for it. Kenton was condemned to die.

Kuroso waited at the entrance to the compound. The dust boiled closer, resolving itself into two Land Rovers and a lorry.

Kuroso sat down and waited.

When the caravan was very near, Kuroso saw Kenton in the lead Rover, and beside him was a blonde of an amazing fullness of breast. Kuroso's lip curled. It was good that the white woman was so lovely. Having her would encourage his men of the Wild Goats that much more.

Then, seeing him standing there, Kenton slowed the Land Rover. It ground to a stop at the entrance to the village and Kenton bounded out. "Kuroso!"

He made his voice enthusiastic and servile.

"Bwana!"

They clasped hands. Then Kenton dragged Kuroso over to the vehicle.

"Kuroso, Memsahib Barbara Vail. Babs, this is my gunbearer, right hand man, number one boy, Kuroso."

The woman had smoky eyes. They ranged over Kuroso's glistening, loin-wrapped body, taking in the massive shoulders, the banded chest muscles, the flat, plated belly, the iron thighs.

"He doesn't look much like a boy to me," the white woman said very softly, and Kuroso saw her tongue move across her lips to moisten them.

Despite his depletion by Kwasai, Kuroso felt a stir deep within him. The white woman was looking at him hungrily.

She was not the first white woman who had looked at him like that. Most of them did. Kuroso had been able to feel the longing that radiated out from many of them, as tangibly as he had been able to feel the warmth from the sun. But he had never given one of them encouragement before, never dared even to look one in the eye. To have done so would have been betrayal, for he needed Kenton; he needed to learn the white man's weaknesses and foibles and vulnerability, and he could not risk his access to the white man's world.

But it did not matter much any more. They were only five days from the border of his own country. Only five days from the band of militants who would take the women and kill the men.

So he let his eyes return the woman's hot gaze. He let his eyes range over the astounding breasts, the long length of white thighs revealed by the shorts.

He had seen many white women nearly naked, some completely so. It was not anything of which Kenton was aware, but there had been times on safari when white women, drawn by the bull-like stature of him, had made their overtures. Just as there had been other time when the white women, dismissing him from their thoughts completely, had acted as if he were no more than a topless tree trunk and had shown no more modesty before him than if he were. He had seen them strut around in their scanty clothing, had seen the white lusciousness of breast and buttocks and been denied it, teased by it, tormented by it. But his time of torment soon would end that was a promise he made to himself.

Barbara got out of the car. She had very long legs. A remarkable body. Kuroso looked forward to the time when-

She said, offhand to Kenton, as if discussing a monument, "He has a rather lovely body, you know."

Kuroso saw Kenton turn red.

"Knock it off, Barbara. That's the surest way to trouble here."

Kuroso bowed. "Memsahib Vail," he said. His eyes, glinting a secret amusement, locked with those of Kenton. "Lorries all ready," he said in heavy pidgin; "boys all ready go-go."

"Fine," Kenton said. "Round them up and pull in at the tail of the caravan. Get back in the Rover, Barbara. We're moving on."

"We're not going to stay here?" she said, as if disappointed.

"No. We'll camp tonight at the foot of the hills. We have one more days' march by vehicle and then we pack from there on."

Kuroso saw her shrug. "So be it." She got into the Rover.

"Pick us up, Kuroso," Kenton said.

Kuroso waited a beat. Then he said, meekly, "Yes, Bwana," and he turned and walked through the gate of the village, while the caravan moved ahead.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THIS IS ELEPHANT COUNTRY," SAID KENTON.

"Obviously," said Barbara, as another distant trumpeted peeled in the darkness.

They were camped in the velvety night of the foothills. All around them, elephants, disturbed by their presence, circled and trumpeted.

Count di Farbo, his bony hands hugging a glass, said nervously: "Listen to the brutes. They'll come into camp and smash us all to a jelly."

Kenton laughed. "Hardly, Guido."

Marion di Farbo, wearing a low-cut bra and a pair of scanty shorts, rubbed her weary face.

"I don't see how I'm going to be able to sleep with that racket," she said.

"Have another drink, dear," di Farbo said, pouring one for her. "It will help you."

"I don't think another drink is what I need," said . Marion, looking at him significantly.

"It's what I need," Cynthia said tersely. She took the glass from his hand and drained it quickly. "Make me another, Guido."

Di Farbo frowned at her. "Little owlet, you have been drinking a great deal ... "

"Lesbians always drink a lot," Barbara said crassly. She laughed, shooting a glance at Kenton.

He did not return the laugh. He concentrated his attention on his glass.

"I want another drink," said Cynthia.

Barbara shifted in her chair restlessly. She had done something wrong, and she did not know what it was. But ever since the night that she had revealed Cynthia's perversity to Kenton, he had been cool to her. No matter how hard she tried, she could not get a rise out of him. It was as if he begrudged her opening his eyes to what Cynthia really was, and her whole tactic had backfired.

He let Cynthia alone, because he knew that Cynthia was a Lesbian. But he let her alone, too, and she was only gradually beginning to suspect that it was because he knew that she was a witch.

Whatever the reason for Kenton's coolness, Barbara did not like it. Three days without a man were three too many for her. The itch that harassed her was violent and quite impersonal. A man's services were needed. Damn it, why did Kenton have to draw into such a shell right now?

Her eyes ranged to Guido.

Of course, there was always Guido.

She'd had no trouble seducing Guido. Three days after the marriage she had seduced Guido, just to prove to herself that he didn't really love Marion or if he did love her, she could easily take him away from her sister.

She remembered the incident vividly. It had occurred in the villa in Florence. Marion had been napping in the next room. Barbara had been drinking heavily all that day. When Guido entered the room in which she sat, Barbara had motioned to him to join her.

She'd wound up sitting on Guido's lap.

With her skirt up about her waist. And with Guido's trousers down about his knees.

And when it was over, she had laughed loudly at Guido.

Laughed at him because he was so easily seduced and because she'd had better.

Laughed at him because she knew who had the checkbook.

Laughed at him because he had made no motion to assert dominance over her and because she despised him for that.

Marion sat drinkless at the end of the table, feeling burnt out and hollow-eyed.

She knew that the itch in her was the same as the one in Barbara. The need for a man. But at least hers was legitimate. She was married and her husband had not touched her in nearly two weeks. What she had accumulated inside her body was a tremendous knot of desire that was awaiting release.

Tonight, perhaps, if she were very clever with Guido...

Cynthia had another drink.

She had tried hard not to draw a sober breath since the night Barbara had so ruthlessly revealed her before Kenton as a Lesbian.

To her the word was hateful. It was something to be drowned in liquor.

The prisoner of her own body.

Her mind lanced back in time, trying to discern where it had all begun, at what point she had become perverted.

She could hear her mother's rasping voice again. "Don't you ever let a man touch you that way, you hear? They're all after the same thing."

That had been her mother's idea of a woman-to-woman talk.

So she had not let boys touch her.

Still, inexplicably, there had been something in her that wanted to be touched. That wanted to reach out to others and establish rapport. That wanted to take ... and wanted to give.

In high school, Miss Weber, the physical education teacher, had showed her a way she could give and a way she could take. And all this without having to touch a boy.

She had been late leaving the gym, for she had mislaid her books. Gym class was the last class of the day. All the other girls had gone home. Only Cynthia remained in the hollow, antiseptic-smelling fastness of the girl's locker room. She had showered, but she had not dressed. She could not imagine what had become of her books, and, still naked from the shower, she padded through the locker room searching all the benches for them.

Then, somewhere a long distance away, a door had opened and shut. In blouse and bloomers, Miss Weber had entered. Miss Weber was twenty-five, old as God by the lights of the fifteen-year-old Cynthia. She had a pleasant, slightly lantern-jawed face. She wore her hair cut rather short. She had nearly no breasts at all and her legs were long and lean.

"Are you still here, Cynthia?" she had asked.

"Yes, ma'am. I can't find my books."

"Oh," said Miss Weber. "Your books. Well. They must be here somewhere. They must be. I'll help you look."

Cynthia heard Miss Weber padding in sneakers behind her as she went from bench to bench "I guess somebody must have picked them up by mistake," she said.

"Perhaps so," said Miss Weber.

"Unless they're under here," Cynthia said. She bent and peered into the last recess under some lockers, the only place she had not examined.

That was when she felt the hand on the curve of her buttock.

It was a small, soft, very strong hand. Stroking tenderly the taut and rounded skin.

Cynthia stayed bent, not daring to straighten up.

If she did, she would have to face Miss Weber.

The hand continued to stroke the curve of her behind. Cynthia could hear the labored breathing of Miss Weber, loud in the empty locker room.

"You have lovely skin," Miss Weber said. "Just adorable."

Cynthia closed her eyes.

She had dreamed of hands doing that to her. Hands slipping over the velvet curves, hands hungry and fingers reaching demandingly.

But it had been male fingers she had dreamed of, not those of Miss Weber.

In her ignorance and innocence, it had seemed incredible that a female touch could excite her as much as a male touch. It was a strange thing and one she did not know how to deal with.

She just stayed there, naked legs spread apart, body bent.

"Lovely skin," Miss Weber said again, and her fingers were delicate and practiced and inexorable.

A shiver had run down Cynthia's spine. Suddenly she could stand it no longer. She clamped her thighs together on Miss Weber's hand.

She heard Miss Weber gasp. She felt Miss Weber's other hand slide around her belly, stroke it, and then pull her straight. Miss Weber's other hand slid up her belly and to the budding eminences of the jutting cones of her breasts.

Cynthia shuddered again.

Untouched by anyone, she had constructed such fantasies in her dreams, but she had never conjectured that it would be a woman who would make them come true.

Or that a woman could excite in her the kind of sensation Miss Weber was arousing.

The hand roamed over her small breasts, toyed with the nipples. The other hand kept on doing what it was doing.

Cynthia felt a balloon swelling within her. It seemed to grow to vastness in her belly. As if of their own volition, her legs moved further apart to allow Miss Weber's hand more freedom. Then clamped back together. Then moved apart. Striking a rhythm.

Now there were lips on the nape of her neck.

She felt the moistness of a tongue making circular motions there.

Miss Weber sounded breathless when the tongue stopped. "T've been watching you, Cynthia. I've been watching vou for an awfully long time. God, you're lovely..."

Cynthia wanted to cry out: Stop I Don't do this to me!

But she did not. For the sensations that were coursing through her body were too exquisite to terminate.

At last Miss Weber said, hoarsely, "I think we'd better go in my office."

"Yes," Cynthia heard herself whimper. It seemed to her as if the sound came from another's throat.

Miss Weber's office was a small cubicle at one end of the locker room. She pushed Cynthia into it and then carefully locked the door.

"Now," she said huskily. She stood there, tall and spare in middy blouse and bloomers, the figure of authority. She ran her hands nervously over her own small chest. "Now," she said again, and then she was peeling off the blouse and pants.

She had a body like a boy's. It was long-legged and narrow-hipped and flat chested. There was only one difference.

Cynthia, dazed with excitement, watched Miss Weber strip.

The teacher moved close to Cynthia, embraced her, bore her lips down on Cynthia's mouth. For the first time, Cynthia knew the thrust of a passionate tongue. Somehow it was like being violated. For a moment everything in her rebelled. But the tongue was insistent. And then Cynthia felt her own replying. Linking with the tongue Miss Weber had inserted in her mouth.

Miss Weber's slender loins had moved against Cynthia. Miss Weber's hands had been insistent on Cynthia's breasts and buttocks. Cynthia was a jelly of desire when the woman finally pushed her down on the worn leather sofa that rested against one wall.

Miss Weber turned to the desk. Opened a drawer. Withdrew something from the drawer.

Even to Cynthia's naive eyes, the contrivance she held in her hand looked monstrous and exciting.

Miss Weber, as Cynthia had seen, was exactly like a boy.

Except in one respect.

Now, struggling with straps, Miss Weber remedied her deficiency.

Her eyes glittered as she advanced to Cynthia.

Cynthia drew in a deep, shuddering breath. She knew what was coming. She knew what was going to happen to her. She knew it would hurt and that she should flee from it.

But she did not.

Instead, she slipped one leg off the sofa and closed her eyes.

She could feel Miss Weber's breath on her throat. Then there was pain. Cynthia gasped

But after the pain, there was ecstasy-ecstasy and knowledge...

That was how it had begun for Cynthia. That was why, for the next year, all her attentions, all her desires, were focused on the lean and slender gym teacher, Miss Weber. Why she paid no attention to boys, was repelled even by their awkward, fumbling advances, so crude and terrifying compared to Miss Weber's exciting approach.

A year is long enough to set a psychological pattern. Cynthia's was set during that year.

For her it was a genuine love affair, with all her affections and longings focused on the woman. She had no idea, no intimation, that she was only one out of many until her sixteenth year.

Then she had walked into Miss Weber's office without knocking.

There was a plump, dark girl in the tenth grade whose name was Dina Prosser. Already fully developed, she had lush, joggling breasts and wide hips and heavy thighs.

Cynthia opened the door and saw Dina lying nude on the couch. Her thick legs were locked around the lean body of Miss Weber. Cynthia saw the ecstatically drumming heels, the buckled straps, the heaving buttocks.

Sick, empty, she turned away and shut the door behind her.

Then had come the year of the tailspin.

It never occurred to her to seek solace with boys or men. Her mother had warned her against boys and men and she was afraid of them. But there was solace to be sought with other girls.

Recklessly, she made advances. Some of them were received and reciprocated, some were not.

By the end of her senior year, it was well known in the high school that Cynthia Blake was a flaming Lesbian. The school seethed with the gossip, and the town was beginning to seethe with it, too.

That was the turning point, that was when she had fled to Greenwich Village.

Now Cynthia was acutely aware of Kenton's presence. Aware of him and afraid of him. She could not bear his eyes on her. Whiskey would blank out his stare; if she drank enough, she would be able to forget his presence. And when bedtime came, and Barbara said, imperiously, "Cynthia, undress me," there would be no regrets and no hesitations.

She held out her glass.

"One more drink, Guido," she said thickly.

Long after the others had gone to bed, Barbara sat alone at the camp table, still drinking.

So now they were giving her the old high-hat, all of them. Even Kenton.

So to hell with all of them.

She could go to bed, of course. She could go to bed and say, "Cynthia ... "

But that wasn't what she wanted tonight. What she wanted was a man.

The elephants still trumpeted in the darkness. Somewhere, a long distance away, a lion boomed and coughed. A weird chatter that she did not recognize ululated through the night; perhaps it was a hyena, perhaps only the spirit of the broad plains of Africa jeering at those who dared transgress in the thick wilderness.

Barbara poured another drink, tossed it off, and stood up. She was wearing a bra that barely covered the nipples of her magnificent breasts and a pair of tight, low-slung pants that hugged her hips just above the danger point, fully exposing the indented shadow of her navel and the curve of her belly. She paced the space between the tents restlessly.

Only Kenton and now he was freezing up on her. But of all the men she had known, over the years, only Kenton had stirred her in any measure.

That had been a mistake, letting him see what Cynthia really was. It had tarred her with the same brush. Kenton was revolted with them both.

She ran her hands down the soft flesh of her body between bra and pants. Her mind traveled back through the years. Back to her introduction to sex.

As she had told Kenton, it had occurred very early in her life and at the hands of her father's groom, down in the stables. When she closed her eyes, she could still smell the pungency of horses, still feel the iron-banded muscles of his body. It had left her a legacy trauma, the psychologists would call it that she would never be rid of.

She kept seeking a man as rough and primitive as the first one, as hard and dominating.

But in her milieu, a woman didn't meet many rough, hard and dominating men. What she met was a succession of pale, soft-bodied, spongy fortune-hunters.

Until Kenton. His hard body and masculine drive and complete indifference to her imperiousness had fascinated and aroused her as she had not been aroused in a long time.

But now Kenton was disgusted with her, despite the satisfaction she had given him that night, or maybe because of it, and he would have nothing more to do with her, and she was at loose ends.

With a bit too much whiskey in her, she looked out at the night, listened to the trumpeting elephants and the howling animals.

Maybe it would be simpler just to walk out there, she thought drunkenly. Then all the weird cross-stresses and strains within her could be ended. Surely an elephant or a lion or a leopard would be quick and merciful and put her at her ease-

Idly, she moved away from camp. Into the noisy darkness.

She had gone perhaps fifty paces when a huge hand clamped around her bare arm. A deep, sonorous voice said, "It is not well to go too far from camp at night, Missy Bwana. There are claws and teeth in the darkness."

Barbara stiffened, looking up in surprise at the darker darkness that loomed above her. She saw white teeth flashing, the slope of great shoulders. Kuroso.

"Let me go," she said, instinctively trying to withdraw her arm.

"No, Missy. The camp is asleep. There is no one near to protect you but me. You must not go out there."

She started at him. "I didn't know you spoke English so fluently."

"Only when required," he said. "To dissuade an unwise woman."

Some of the tenseness went out of Barbara. She noticed that he did not take his hand away. She could feel an aura radiating from his body. She took a deep breath, moved closer to him.

"All right," she said softly. "I won't go out there then." She put out her other hand and touched his arm. She ran exploratory fingers up the hard length of it. She remembered the sight of him in daylight, striding around the camp, commanding the others, his body tall and oaken and gleaming dark, clad only in loincloth against the heat. She let her fingers move up to the huge, strong hump of his shoulder, and then the tips of them trailed down over his bulging chest.

"I won't go out there," she said. "I'll stay here."

She knew, now.

She knew that she had found a way to ease the fire within her.

She heard Kuroso's hard breathing coming out of the darkness.

Her fingers coursed on down his belly, to the loincloth.

"Kuroso," she said in awe.

He made a strangled sound in his throat. Then she was encircled with iron. The catch popped loose on the overloaded bra of its own accord. She did not notice, glorying in the crush of her softness against hard masculinity.

Then she was rocking backward, sinking to her knees, then on her back, and big hands were tugging at the waistband of her pants. She felt the rough ground beneath her buttocks as the pants came down, were discarded.

Then there was a huge body towering over her. Incredulously, excitedly, she winced and gritted her teeth as he moved at her. Then she had him and something happened.

With her eyes closed, she could almost imagine herself a child again, cornered in the stables.

There was the same brutal, masculine indifference.

There was the same feeling of being completely possessed.

There was the same old ecstasy.

A quality of ecstasy she had not known in many a year.

She gave herself up to it.

Outside of camp, the elephants continued to trumpet

CHAPTER NINE

"THEY LEFT THEIR VEHICLES AT THE GOVERNMENT way station and ascended into the hills with their baggage carried by native bearers. Regulations set a load limit of sixty pounds per native and a maximum required march of fifteen miles per day. They were lucky to make six. None of the whites except Kenton was used to walking, especially uphill. Rest stops were frequent and their pace was slowed to a crawl that Kenton found frustrating.

Of the four, Cynthia bore the march best. It was not she who needed to stop and rest. Usually it was the di Farbos who gave out first, especially Guido, who would sink to the ground without preliminary, cursing and announcing to the world that he could go no farther. Marion, just as fagged, would drop beside him gratefully.

Nor had it escaped Kenton that when they rested, some weird gravitation drew Barbara toward Kuroso. It was not something he liked. He knew her wantonness. She would not hesitate to seduce the native, he told himself. And that could be fatal to the whole expedition. As much as he loved Kuroso and valued the African's friendship, he knew that only evil and dissension could come from Barbara's too-blatant lust for the big black man. The master-servant relationship had to be maintained. If Kuroso were enabled to enjoy a white woman one whom Kenton had also enjoyed Kuroso would get unfitting ideas. It could not be tolerated.

He thought he could already see an unwholesome alchemy working in Kuroso, and he attributed it entirely to Barbara. As they climbed upward through heavy, rain-lushened brush and plants that looked like something transplanted from Mars, as they neared the border of the Kinoro country, Kenton thought he detected an increasing withdrawal of Kuroso from him, a kind of building arrogance.

It was not anything he could put his finger on, but it worried him.

There was, of course, time for hunting.

Game was beginning to be plentiful here in these uplands. It was lion country, and Barbara insisted on getting her lion.

Kenton and Kuroso took her out on a side expedition one day to find the lion she wanted. After careful stalking, they encountered a pride of heavy upland lions in a wooded valley. A quiet progress through the brush brought them to within a hundred yards. There was a magnificent old male, a young male with his mane still straggly, and a great lioness and two cubs.

"Take the big one," Kenton signaled.

Barbara nodded, crouching, bringing the rifle to her shoulder. She sighted and fired. The old lion jumped, snapped at his flank, and fell dead. The young lion whirled.

Barbara's gun roared again. The young loin leaped and dropped.

Kenton whirled in a rage. "Damn it, stop firing! You're killing uselessly-"

But the gun whanged once more. The lioness, crouched in indecision, dropped with a bullet through her head.

Kenton moved to strike up the gun barrel. But it was too late. Twice more the gun sounded; bullets sped home with flawless accuracy, and the confused cubs yowled and fell.

Barbara had slaughtered the entire pride.

Kenton got to his feet, his face contorted. "You you ... " He was wordless with anger.

Barbara faced him, her eyes shining, her lips parted. "It's what I came for," she breathed. "I wanted to kill something."

"Oh, God," said Kenton in despair. He turned and walked away.

"Skin the big one, Kuroso," he called back over his shoulder. "We can only pack one hide. The vultures and the maribou storks will have to take care of the others."

He strode away without looking back, so sick at the wanton slaughter that he did not care whether Barbara followed him or not

She did not. She walked forward toward the dead lions, on which flies were swarming. Already in the blue overhead there were the circling black dots of vultures. She carried her gun ready, but she knew there was no necessity for it; they were all dead. She heard Kuroso coming softly at her heels.

She halted over the bodies, staring down at them, looking at the glazed eyes, the lolling tongues, the welling blood. She was pleased and excited, very excited.

Kuroso stood close behind her.

"Kuroso," she said. "Before you skin the big one ... "

He understood. Wordlessly, he seized her arm and pulled her down behind a clump of thorn.

The vultures had landed on the dead bodies before they finished.

Kenton paced the edge of the camp. He was waiting until everyone had gone to bed. When finally the last light had gone off in the last tent, he lit a cigarette. "Kuroso," he said very softly.

"Yes, Bwana." As if by magic, the big African materialized out of the darkness at his elbow.

"Kuroso, I don't like it."

"Bwana?"

"Miss Vail. You know what I mean."

"Yes. Bwana." Kuroso's voice was soft. "It is as it is on the plains in the mating season when the animals come in heat. The females make the advances then toward the males, begging them. The white missy "

"Yes," said Kenton bitterly. "I know. The white missy is always in need, seemingly. But that doesn't change anything, Kuroso. You know the rules. This sort of thing is bad business."

"Yes, Bwana."

"You had better watch your step, Kuroso. It's something I'm telling you for your own good. I don't blame you, understand "

"Yes, Bwana," Kuroso said with humility in his voice.

"You're only a man. And she's a hell of a woman. But there's no blowing the fact, she's white and--. "

"And I'm black," Kuroso said. "And you're black," said Kenton. "Bwana . "

"Yes?"

"My father's first wife was English. It is done in England, is it not?"

"I don't know. I've never been to England. I was brought up in Kenya; you know that."

"Yes, Bwana. Still, it seems odd."

"What's odd?"

"That my father could take a white wife. That because my brother Daum has white blood in his veins, he rules and not I. That for me it is forbidden to lie with a woman of a different color even when she wants me to. It's something I don't understand. I am valued for what my father's training among the whites has given me, but not valued enough to "

"I know," Kenton said wearily. "Things are all mixed up. It's a bloody mess. But I don't know of anything I can do about it. I don't know of anything anybody can do about it. The rules were all laid down long before you and I were born."

"Yes," said Kuroso. "The rules. Isn't it odd, though? I am an African, a black man, and this is my country. But even in my own country, the rules I must live under are laid down by others."

Kenton tried to pierce the darkness to see Kuroso's face. He could not. Inexplicably, a tiny chill marched down his spine.

He softened his voice. "What's eating you, Kuroso."

"Nothing, Bwana."

"No, something is."

"Only the rules, Bwana."

Kenton rubbed his hands along the seams of his pants, for they had suddenly grown strangely sweaty. He said, "We've been together too long, Kuroso, through too many tight places, for us to misunderstand each other. But there is something in your voice that disturbs me."

"Perhaps," said Kuroso, "I did not speak with fitting humility. I am very sorry, Bwana."

"Skip it," Kenton said. "I we don't seem to be on each other's wave-length tonight, Kuroso. Let's turn in and get some sleep."

They continued to climb.

Kenton led the column, gun in hand. The trail was narrow, and to meet an animal on it could be embarrassing for all concerned. Surprised animals usually ran or charged. In this remote region, where they had no fear of man, it was more than-likely that they would charge.

Panting a little, Cynthia came up even with him, outstripping the rest of the toiling column. Kenton had hardly spoken to her since the night several days before when Barbara had initiated what had turned out to be a rather startling orgy.

"Hello," Cynthia said.

"Hello," Kenton said tersely. He tried not to see her again, kneeling before Barbara's cot, head straining forward. Tried not to see Barbara's high-booted, leathern feet drumming their heels against Cynthia's back. . .

"This is lovely country," she said. Her voice was small and tentative.

"Yes."

"I've enjoyed the trip so far."

"I rather imagine you have," he said dryly. "After all, you share a tent with Barbara."

They walked along in silence.

"You were shocked," Cynthia said after a while.

"Of course I was. I never dreamed, I never suspected "

"I can't help the way I am."

"Can't you?"

"No. I once thought I could. But I don't think so now."

"Then I'm sorry for you," Kenton said. He picked up his stride a little, trying to out-distance her, but she managed to keep up.

"If I could change," said Cynthia, "I would."

"Have you ever tried changing?"

She hesitated. "No."

They walked along in silence for a moment. Then Cynthia said timidly, "I have never even been made love to by a man. I don't know what it's like."

"Probably not as much fun as being made love to by a woman," Kenton said brutally.

"Maybe not," said Cynthia after a while. "I have no way of knowing."

There was a cliff to the right. The trail ascended steeply up the mountain. Ahead, the shoulder of the cliff blocked off the view of the trail where it turned. They had far out-distanced the rest of the column, which toiled up the slope behind them.

"Well, maybe someday," said Kenton, "you'll find a man who doesn't know what you are and you'll get a chance to find out."

"Yes," said Cynthia, "maybe that will happen someday."

They approached the shoulder of the cliff. It was a blind turn. Instinctively Kenton put out a hand. "Let me go first. One never knows " He rounded the turn with her behind him.

Cynthia screamed.

The elephant had no business being on the trail at all. He should have been down in one of the valleys, gorging himself on the lush fodder that grew there.

But, Kenton saw immediately, he was an old rogue, an outcast from the herd. He had come up here to be alone and sulk. His huge, gray body was livid in spots with horrid, festering wounds left by the tusks of the younger bull that had driven him off. One of his tusks was broken, the end of it raw and exposed.

Kenton and the elephant reacted simultaneously.

The elephant's ears came out like tremendous flaps. Its trunk curled high, out of harm's way and to leave room for its tusks to work. It charged, without preliminary.

There was no room to run, no room to dodge, no room to do anything except get off a single shot.

There were three places on an elephant, and three only where a single bullet would kill instantaneously.

One was a small spot in the middle of the forehead. One was through the eye. And one was another small spot directly behind the ear.

Instinctively, Kenton chose the middle of the forehead. As the great, gray bulk loomed above them, he threw the gun to his shoulder and pulled the trigger.

The elephant trumpeted, a cross between a roar and a scream and the blast of a steam whistle. Its forelegs buckled, its huge body slid.

Its massive shoulder slammed against Kenton and Cynthia, knocking them over the edge of the trail and into the brush of the slope.

Then the elephant plowed on by, carried by its own momentum, and, missing crushing them by a hair's breadth, plummeted over the side of the mountain and rolled down the hill, crashing through the brush.

They could hear it continue to roll for a long time.

Even Kenton had closed his eyes. Now he opened them, surprised to find himself alive.

And surprised to find his arm protectively about Cynthia and she burrowed tightly against him, her face buried in his chest, the perfume of her hair in his face.

"Oh," she moaned, "oh, oh."

Kenton's arm tightened about her. "It's all right," he said automatically. "It's quite all right now."

But she did not raise her head. She still lay tightly against him in terror.

"All right," Kenton said. "All right, Cynthia." The column was a long way behind them. It would take it at least a half hour to catch up. He stroked her back. "You're safe now."

At last she raised her head. Her face was very close to his; he saw the tear-filled eyes, the trembling lips.

He did not know what impulse made him lean forward and kiss her.

He did it gently, possibly as a measure to quiet her. But it changed into something else entirely different without his willing it.

Her mouth was soft beneath his lips. Closed at first, it slowly parted, and he felt the tiny tip of her tongue peeping out timidly from between her teeth. Automatically, he touched it with his own. As if it were a signal, her teeth parted, and suddenly her tongue thrust into his mouth and her body strained against his.

It was not a comfortable place, there on the slope in the heavy brush. But neither of them seemed to be aware of it after the first passionate contact.

Kenton's hand slid down her back, cupping one small, soft, and compact buttock through her skirt. Her arms went about him desperately. His hand slid on down, then up her skirt. It entered under the elastic of one leg of her panties.

He felt the round, soft fullness there and probed at it. Cynthia gasped and squiggled closer to him. She threw a thigh across his legs.

Kenton made a muffled sound in his throat. Infuriated by the panties, he ripped them in a single harsh jerking gesture and tossed them aside. His own arousal was complete and definite. He forgot what Cynthia was, what he had seen her do. All he knew was that she was warm and soft and desirable and here in his arms and that his response could not be helped.

They slid deeper into the brush. Cynthia wrenched her mouth away. "Take me," she gasped. "Hurry."

Her hand found him, guided him. Her legs came up to clamp him. Her body gripped him with a solid softness. It seemed to have a life of its own, breathing, tugging, working. He shoved down on her with all his strength, and she made a delighted sound.

"Oh," she keened. "You're so strong!" Her nails dug into his back.

It was not quite like anything that had ever happened to Kenton before. It was not like Hiraz, it was not like Barbara, it was not like Sheila or like Karen. It was something new and individual and uniquely concerned with Cynthia. It was something besides the satisfaction of the lusts between them.

But the satisfaction of the lusts was part of it, too. The warm, soft grip of her body, the feel of her thighs, the perfume of her hair, the hoarse, rasping sound of her breathing and the little curses and imprecations she keened and whispered in his ear. Added together, it came out perfection.

And then, lifting them both off the mountain, seemingly, turning them weightless for a moment, it happened for the both of them and happened at precisely the same instant, and it seemed to last for an eternity and it seemed to be over with in a clock-tick, and then there was nothing more for either of them except to lie together in the perhaps five minutes that they had left before the rest of the safari came up.

It was the best five minutes Kenton could remember ever having spent in his life, except for the five that had immediately preceded it.

He let his lips play over her throat, over her chin, over her mouth and nose and eyes and forehead and ears. Her own mouth nibbled at him in the same way. Her hands moved up and down his back.

"Cynthia," he said.

Her voice was full of wonder. "I'm not ... I thought I was, I was afraid I was, but I'm not. Do you understand, Peter?"

"I understand," he said.

"I mean ... oh, the years I've wasted."

"No," he said, "not wasted."

"You're right," she said after a moment. "At least there have been no other men for you to be jealous of." Kenton raised his head. "And will there be women?" he asked softly. Cynthia let out a long breath. "No," she said decisively.

"That's good," Kenton said, and he kissed her. Then he stood up.

"I've never been so glad to see an elephant in my life," he said, "or to be charged by one."

Cynthia looked down the mountainside, as he gave her a hand up.

"Poor old Jumbo," she said.

Now Kuroso was hurrying up the path toward them, strong legs driving, his own gun at the ready. "Bwana, I heard you shoot. But I was bringing up the rear of the column, so far back that "

"Rogue elephant," Kenton said. "We met him there at the bend of the trail. Fortunately I had time to get off a shot." He pointed, and Kuroso's trained eye took in the path the elephant had plowed down the mountainside.

"There's one good tusk," said Kenton. "You'd better send a boy down to cut it out and bring it along. Perhaps Daum will like it as a present."

Kuroso nodded. He looked relieved now. "I was afraid," he said, "that you had encountered the Wild Goats."

Kenton shook his head. "No."

Kuroso said, "From now on, we must be on the alert. This is their country that we move into. Beyond that mountain there is where my brother's chiefdom begins. We cannot consider ourselves safe until his escort meets us."

"I'll keep an eye peeled," said Kenton. "Close the column up and we'll move in a little more compact formation." He squeezed Cynthia's arm. "Let's go. One more mountain to cross."

In late afternoon they came to a plateau level enough to make camp. Kenton and Kuroso were busy until nightfall with the details.

Barbara sat at the camp table, drinking. She seemed to be in a vile mood. Perhaps because of Kenton's injunction to Kuroso, which had kept him well away from her all day. Incessantly she needled and railed at the other members of the party.

"Do you know," she said, raising a glass of straight gin, "I think I've been too liberal with you, Marion. I think I've given you too big an allowance. I believe I'll just about cut one fourth off it when we get back to Nairobi. After all, the old wells only bring in so much every day, you know." She grinned sardonically at Guido. "Can't afford to throw it away on nonessentials."

Marion sat like a vegetable. Barbara's gibes seem to roll off her. She stared dully down at her hands and did not answer.

But the gibes did not roll off di Farbo. He leaned forward, mustache bristling, dark eyes angry.

"You," he said, "are a tramp, my dear sister-in-law."

Barbara chuckled. "But a rich tramp. It's better than being a poor one, isn't it, Guido? How does it feel to be a poor tramp, Guido? You're going to be an even poorer one when we get back to Nairobi. I'm tired of you bleeding me and Marion white. I'm going to clamp down on her until she gets some sense in her head and divorces you. What we need in the Vail family is men, not Counts."

"My ancestry was old when the Guelphs were opposed to the Ghybellines!"

"Whoever they were. Well, my ancestry was old when the Oklahoma land rush took place, so don't try to pull that stuff on me." Barbara took another big swallow of gin. "I'm just plain fed up with you, Guido. Just fed up." She waved the glass. "Matter of fact, I'm fed up with this whole bleeding crew. That little Lez and that great, noble, Wild Bill Hickok of a white hunter, and my dear vegetable sister, and the whole shooting match. You're all too damn namby-pamby for me. And you, Guido, are going to be the first to go ... "

Guido's face was white, but he said nothing. He arose and went to his tent.

Barbara turned on Cynthia. "And you," she said thickly. "You're not getting any ideas about going straight on me, are you? I like you the way you are." Her voice went harsh and mocking, the words flung like sarcastic dagger thrusts.

"I think that'll be enough," Cynthia said, and stood up quickly.

"Sit down," Barbara snapped. "That's an order."

"No," said Cynthia.

Barbara stared at her. "Damn you, what's got into you? Who do you think you are, anyway? You're my secretary, my maid, my fetch-and-carry dog, my lover, anything I order you to be. You understand? If I tell you to get down and lick the dust off my boots, you do it, you understand? You do it and you keep on doing it until they're clean enough to suit me..."

Cynthia looked straight at Barbara.

"Miss Vail ... " Her voice was mild, humble.

"Now, that's better. What do you want?"

Cynthia smiled faintly. "Only to tell you that you can go to hell." Then she too turned and walked to her tent.

Barbara slammed her glass down on the table. She ran after Cynthia, entered the tent, grabbed Cynthia's arm. Her blazing eyes bored into Cynthia's.

"Undress me!" she said harshly.

"No," Cynthia said.

Barbara's hands went to her blouse. She ripped it open. She unfastened the bra. Her breasts leaped forward, unfettered, almost in Cynthia's face.

"Look at them," Barbara said. "Look at them, Cynthia, my little Lesbo. Aren't they pretty? Aren't they tempting? Aren't they delicious?" Her voice was crooning now, seductive. "Touch them, Cynthia." She took Cynthia's hand and brought it to her breast. "Touch it ... "

"Yes," Cynthia said, swallowing hard. Then, quite savagely, she buried her nails deep in Barbara's breast, yanking mercilessly.

Barbara screamed in agony.

Cynthia smiled coolly and took her hand away. A trickle of blood ran across white skin and dripped from the tip of Barbara's right breast.

"That," said Cynthia quietly, "should cure you of asking me to touch you."

Half cursing, half crying, Barbara clamped a handkerchief to the place where Cynthia had raked the skin. The bleeding stopped in a moment. Barbara seized her blouse and slid into it, not bothering to button it, though she wore no bra beneath it now.

"Damn you," she said thinly, "you'll pay." She turned and left the tent and walked back to the table where she had left her drink. She drained the glass and poured another one and sat down and drank that one savagely too, while Marion looked on in silence and without expression.

While Barbara had been in the tent with Cynthia, Kenton had been engaged in reconnoitering the area about the campsite. He had just returned when di Farbo came out of his tent carrying a rifle.

Though Barbara had insisted on buying one for him, it was the first time that Kenton had seen di Farbo carry a weapon. His brows arched.

"I haven't done a bit of hunting since this expedition began," di Farbo said querulously. "I thought I'd go out and roam around the edge of camp. Perhaps I might scare up some game and get a shot."

"It's not a wise idea to shoot this close to camp," said Kenton. "Anyway, I doubt you'd find anything."

"Well, I'll at least have a chance to stretch my legs," di Farbo said.

Kenton looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. "All right," he nodded at last. "Kuroso! Go with Bwana di Farbo!"

"I don't need a guide! I'm not going far! I'm perfectly capable "

"I'm sure you are," Kenton said. "But I never let a client loose on his own. Bad policy. Especially up here. I wouldn't want you to get chopped up by the Wild Goats."

"I'm not going to get chopped up by anything. I just want a breath of air."

"I don't think Kuroso will interfere with your breathing. Keep an eye on the bwana, Kuroso."

"Yes," Kuroso said obediently, bobbing his head.

Di Farbo muttered savagely to himself as, with Kuroso in the lead, he struck off into the heavy bush that rimmed the camp. Kenton's insistence on sending the native along was throwing a wrench into his plan...

"Kuroso," he said, "why don't you go this way and I'll go that way? And if you see any game you can drive it toward me."

Kuroso shook his head. "Bwana Kenton no like. Bwana Kenton very angry Kuroso leave you."

"Oh, hell. I can shoot. I'm a good shot. I never liked shooting, one gets frightfully dirty in all the odd positions, but I can do it. I'm quite all right by myself."

Kuroso shook his head and said nothing more. They went a bit farther into the bush. Then di Farbo stopped. He beckoned to Kuroso. The African moved over to him soundlessly and with curiosity on his face.

"Kuroso," said di Farbo, "how would you like to make a hundred dollars?"

Kuroso's eyes widened, but he said nothing.

"Big spree in Nairobi," di Farbo went on persuasively. "Very many women, much whiskey. Good time, one hundred dollars. Eh?"

"For what?" Kuroso asked.

Di Farbo pointed. Through a gap in the brush, they could see the camp two hundred yards away. Barbara had come back to the outside table and was sitting there with a glass clutched in her hand. Her bright hair shone in the last glimmers of sunlight.

Di Farbo raised his rifle. He aimed at her. The telescopic sight brought her up close. He centered the crosshairs on a point just between her shoulder blades. He held his breath.

Then he lowered the rifle.

There was understanding now in Kuroso's face.

Di Farbo went on eagerly. "Kuroso, suppose an animal charged me. Suppose I had to shoot in self defense. And a bullet went wild into camp. You were a witness to it all ... "

"No," Kuroso said.

"A hundred dollars," di Farbo said urgently. "That's a lot of money, Kuroso."

"No," Kuroso said again.

"All right, then, damn it. Two hundred. Three hundred. My God, you could buy every black woman in Nairobi for three hundred dollars."

Kuroso shook his head again.

"Bwana Kenton very angry," he said.

Di Farbo's lips twisted in rage. "You damned, hard-headed black! You stupid, uncivilized clod "

Kuroso said, in perfect English as cultivated as di Farbo's own, "Sir, you shouldn't abuse me like that."

Di Farbo's jaw dropped open. "What?"

"You should keep a civil tongue in your head," said Kuroso.

"My God," said di Farbo, "where did you learn to talk like that."

"A man is not necessarily ignorant because he is black," Kuroso said, "no more than he is noble because he is a count."

"But I thought I thought ... "

"I daresay, sir, that my noble lineage goes back a good many generations further than yours. Or at least as far. My ancestors were chiefs when Romulus and Remus were being suckled by a she-wolf."

"Why, you insulting "

"No more abuse, sir, please," Kuroso said gently. "My followers would not like it."

"Your followers?" di Farbo stared at him.

"The Wild Goats," Kuroso said simply and moved his hand in a sweeping gesture.

Di Farbo turned. And that was when he saw them.

They had appeared from nowhere, and they were standing there watching him. Savages. Black, painted savages. Naked, except for loin cloths and goatskin masks, flung over their heads, the horns still intact and arching back, the capes flowing down their shoulders. So that they were like creatures out of a medieval bestiary or out of a nightmare, as they stood there immobile, huge, gleaming knives in their hands.

Di Farbo was frozen for perhaps two clock-ticks. Then he opened his mouth to scream.

Nothing came out.

Kuroso's huge hand clamped over his mouth, slamming the jaw shut by main strength. Kuroso's other hand was wresting away the gun. Kuroso's bulk was bearing di Farbo backward.

With bulging eyes, he saw the horned and caped figures close in. He felt hard ground under his shoulder blades. He kicked and threshed. One of the horned figures bent and stayed his legs, pinning his ankles.

"Sorry, Bwana," Kuroso said in English, his voice soft and almost amused. "My men will have a purification and dedication ceremony tonight. There is a part of you a certain part of a white man which is indispensable to it." He made a gesture of command.

Di Farbo struggled uselessly. He must be dreaming this, he thought crazily. It could not be happening to him, the man who had always loved the Sweet Life, not to di Farbo, Count of Parazzo, the suave, the boule-vardier. Not like this, not out here in this forsaken jungle at the hands of savages.

He felt his ankles being pried apart. He saw one of the horned men test the edge of a knife with a thumb. Then the horned man was bending over.

It was Barbara's fault, all her fault, she insisted. The witch, the tramp, it was her, and now there was no way to pay her back.

At first he did not feel the knife. Then he did and he screamed. But no sound came from beneath Kuroso's sealing palm.

Even though di Farbo screamed for a long time before he finally quit.

The slam of gunfire in the bush brought Kenton whirling around. He unslung his rifle automatically and ran toward the sound. Five shots in a row something had happened in there!

Cynthia appeared in the doorway of the tent. "Peter? What--? "

"Stay back," he snapped. "Everybody stay back. Barbara, you're the best shot here. Get your rifle and be on guard." Then he ran toward the sound. "Kuroso! Kuroso!"

"Here, Bwana!"

Kenton said a little prayer of thanks as he heard his gunbearer's voice. He had been afraid that Kuroso had been hurt in the fusillade.

"What is it, Kuroso?"

"The Wild Goats!" Kuroso called back.

Kenton bolted a round into the chamber.

"They've gone," Kuroso called. "I chased them away."

Kenton ran toward his voice, slipping soundlessly through the brush. He emerged in a clearing. He stopped dead, staring at what lay on the ground.

"Di Farbo," he breathed.

Kuroso seemed to be panting. "I I was ahead of him. Then, when I turned around, he'd disappeared. I don't know whether he'd wandered off or they'd jerked him into the brush. I went looking for him. When I found him, they were bending over him and he was already like that. I shot at them. I think

I hit one of them, but it's hard to tell. There's so much of his blood all around." He looked at Kenton pathetically. "I'm sorry, Bwana. It's all my fault."

"No," Kenton grated, "I should have known better than to let him go into the bush under any circumstances. It's my fault, Kuroso, not yours."

There was a crashing in the brush behind them. Kenton whirled, gun coming up.

"Don't shoot!" Barbara called. "It's only me."

"Stay back," Kenton said in a strangled voice. "You don't want to see this."

"Don't I?" Barbara came into the clearing. "Why, is it ? " She broke off as she saw di Farbo.

Kenton saw with horror that not a flicker of expression crossed her lovely face.

"Well, well," she said callously. "They certainly made mincemeat out of him, didn't they?" She looked down at the body with interest. "I wonder if they started at the bottom and worked up or if they started at the top and worked down. And what do you suppose they did with his head? Not to mention his "

"Shut up," Kenton said thickly.

"I'm sorry," Barbara said harshly. "I didn't know you had a weak stomach. Personally, I can see where it's saved me a lot of trouble."

"Listen," Kenton said, whirling her around, "get on back to camp and keep your gun ready. If you see anything in the brush in any direction but this, shoot first and ask questions later. Kuroso, go get a tarp. I'll stand guard."

A few moments later, they walked back into camp, Kuroso carrying a canvas wrapped burden that hung limply over his shoulders. Wordlessly, he laid it down in the center of camp.

Cynthia and Marion stared at it with faces white with horror. "Barbara told us," Cynthia said.

"Yes," Marion said numbly. "Barbara told us. In detail."

"I'm sorry," Kenton said with pity. He put his hand on her shoulder. She moved from beneath it. "I'm sorry," he said again.

"It's all right," Marion said quietly. She looked at Barbara. "It's not Peter's fault, is it, Barbara?"

"The fault lies not with Kenton but in our stars, Brutus," Barbara said flippantly.

"No, it's not Peter's fault," Marion went on. "Nor the stars."

And then she flung herself at Barbara.

"It's your fault!" she screamed. "That's whose fault it is!" Tears were coursing down her face. Her nails hooked in Barbara's blouse, ripped it away. Her clawed fingers gouged at Barbara's already striped bosom. "You're the one who killed him!"

"You idiot!" Barbara squalled, "get away." She tried to slap Marion.

But Marion was in too close. Barbara tangled her hand in Marion's hair, jerked her sister's head around. Her huge breasts, naked, joggled and bounced as she struggled with Marion.

"We could have had a happy marriage if it hadn't been for you!" Marion screamed. "But you ruined it. You and your damned sadistic, overbearing ways. You can't stand to see anyone happy. And you hated Guido. You hate happiness. You made him come out here into this wilderness and now he's dead and it's you who've killed him, you, you, and I'll-" Despite Barbara's grip in her hair, she pivoted and managed to rake her nails across Barbara's belly. They left bloody stripes.

Kenton moved in, then, yanking the women apart.

"The tramp," Marion whimpered, straining against Kenton's grasp. "Let me at her ... "

"Shut up, you cow," Barbara snarled back.

Kenton's face was set. "Keep your mouth closed, Barbara. Cynthia, get Marion into a tent, see if you can get her calmed down. Kuroso, have the boys build fires around the perimeter. Give Nkora a gun, he can shoot. And get one for yourself."

"Yes, Bwana," Kuroso said.

"Barbara, get a shirt on. And get a gun yourself. We'll need every weapon on guard tonight."

She rubbed her scratched belly. "Yes, Bwana," she said, imitating Kuroso's tone.

"Hop to it," Kenton rapped. "On the double. We'll keep guard tonight. Tomorrow we'll leg it for the edge of the Kimoro country. Kuroso, will the escort be there waiting for us?"

"They'll be there," Kuroso said.

"Good. Once we get with them, well be safe. But it's-likely to be touch and go between now and then."

CHAPTER TEN

THEY KEPT GUARD IN SHIFTS. BARBARA TOOK THE first watch while Kenton and Kuroso grabbed a bit of sleep before dark. She had the assistant gun bearer, Nkora, to back her up, and all the natives to act as extra eyes. When darkness fell, Kenton took the second shift, and along toward midnight, he awakened Kuroso.

The big African came awake as promptly and alertly as a giant cat. He did not even rub his eyes, but seized his rifle and stood up.

"Everything's all right so far," Kenton said. "But keep a keen eye. I'll sleep with my hand on my rifle."

"Yes, Bwana."

Kenton rolled in.

Kuroso sat in shadow, his gun cradled across his knees. After a moment he heard something crawling toward him from behind, but he did not stir. He knew who it was.

Then Barbara Vail's hand touched his naked thigh.

"I was waiting for Kenton to go to sleep," she whispered. "I thought I'd sit up with you. Keep you company."

Kuroso said, "I'm afraid there's no time for sex."

"There's always time for sex," she said. Her hand brushed aside his loincloth and caressed him, Then she lifted her skirt and cradled herself in his lap.

"You can see over my shoulder," she whispered.

"Yes," Kuroso said. He did not move. He did not have to. Barbara did all the necessary moving.

She had unbuttoned her blouse. She pushed the tips of her breasts hard against his naked chest. He heard her breathing coming more and more quickly. He thought, she is very, very good. It will be a shame when we have to kill her ... but he found that the thought of killing her added to his excitement. For him it was over in an unusually short time; and he heard her sigh, also; she became dead weight on his lap.

After a while, she moved away.

"It's strange, Kuroso," she said. "Only when I'm with you do I feel right."

He said nothing.

"The rest of the time ... " she said. "Sometimes I curse the day my old man struck oil. My life would be a lot less complicated if he hadn't. I wouldn't be such a free-wheeling witch, either. What I would be is a housewife in some small town in Oklahoma, with a bunch of brats hanging on to my skirt, a bunch of noses to wipe and jelly sandwiches to make. It's a shame..."

She did not specify exactly what was a shame.

Then she stood up. "Good night, Kuroso," she said quietly. "Don't let them get you. I'd hate to see them do to you what they did to di Farbo."

Kuroso smiled. "Not-likely," he said, speaking for the first time in a long while.

Daybreak fell upon the camp without any further alarms. Kenton was up early, kicking the stiff and sleepy boys awake and nudging them to expedite the packing. They ate a hasty breakfast, and then the safari strung out along the trail again. Behind them they left a mound of earth with a rude cross stuck in it.

Cynthia strode along beside Kenton, who was setting a stiff pace.

"Maybe," she said, "it would be better if we turned back."

"I thought about that," he said, "but it seems to me we're closer to the escort from Daum than we are to being clear of the Wild Goats."

"How do you know there will be an escort?"

"Kuroso is Daum's half-brother. He arranged for it."

"But there are no telegraph lines in, you said..."

"No. Not any electrical ones. But there's the jungle telegraph. Nothing happens in East Africa without the whole continent knowing about it within twenty-four hours. Don't ask me how it's done. Not entirely with drums. Sometimes I think it's a matter of extra-sensory perception." He patted her shoulder. "Anyhow, Kuroso says the escort will be there, and that's that."

"You trust Kuroso implicitly, don't you?"

"How else can you trust a man who's saved your life on several occasions. And whose life you've saved?"

Cynthia was silent for a moment. Then she said, "All I know is, it seems odd."

"What does?"

"Kuroso goes into the bush with di Farbo. Somehow he lets di Farbo get separated from him. Then, when he shoots at the Wild Goats, he misses with all five shots. I thought he was a better guide than that, and a better shot, too."

Kenton frowned at her. "Are you implying that Kuroso ? "

"I'm not implying anything. I don't know anything about woodcraft or shooting. I just thought that Kuroso was supposed to be miraculous in the bush. He wasn't very miraculous yesterday, was he?"

"I imagine the Wild Goats have some pretty good woodsmen among their numbers, too. Probably as good as Kuroso." He patted her shoulder again. "Look, Kuroso told us what happened and I believe him. There's no reason not to. Don't go building up imaginary specters. There'll be enough real ones without that."

"All right," she said, and she slipped her arm about his waist. "I'll dream about the future instead. How do you like your eggs in the morning?"

Noon found them on the crest of a high ridge. Below rolled what seemed to be a limitless sea of jungle. Kuroso came up beside Kenton and Cynthia and pointed. "Down there," he said. "The beginning of my brother's country. The escort should be waiting just inside the edge of the jungle." He had abandoned his attempt to keep up pidgin English in front of the whites now.

"Well, let's waste no time in getting to them," said Kenton. "Push the boys along, will you?"

They started down the hill. For some reason, Kenton felt a prickling at the base of his neck, an uneasiness in his stomach. His eyes swept the terrain ceaselessly. He kept a tight grip on his rifle.

He was not afraid of the Wild Goats for himself.

But the thought of their getting their hands on Cynthia-

He remembered the message Crisp had gotten from up-country. The man hacked to death, the woman and her daughter first raped by dozens, then killed, too. It was not a pretty thing to contemplate. He halted. Cynthia was wearing a bush jacket bound with a heavy leather belt. Kenton nodded to himself and unbuckled his own belt. He slipped off the .357 Magnum pistol he carried and handed the holstered gun to Cynthia. "Do you know how to shoot a pistol?"

"Vaguely," she said.

"I'd feel better if you were carrying this. If we have any trouble, you know. Not that I expect any once we come up with the escort."

She looked at him, eyes wide.

"And one more thing," he said a bit hesitantly. "It sounds rather dramatic almost like something out of one of your American cowboy and Indian movies, but if we should get captured..."

"Yes?"

"Don't empty the chamber. Keep one bullet in it. Do you understand?"

Her eyes were large and grave. She laid a hand on his arm for a moment.

"I understand," she said, and she buckled on the pistol.

Then Kenton gave a sigh of relief. Men were coming out of the jungle. Black men, bearing spears and shields.

"Oh," Cynthia said, startled.

"Don't be afraid." Kenton smiled at her. "It's

Daum's escort coming to meet us now. We're all right from here on in. We'll be safe in Daum's village, and I'm sure he'll lend us the escort to get out again."

"Would you like your pistol back?"

"No," said Kenton, "keep it a while." Then he turned and bawled: "Kuroso! Kuroso!"

Kuroso came trotting up from the rear of the column, rifle in hand. "Yes, Bwana."

Kenton gestured to the men coming up the hill toward them. There were more than thirty of them. "The escort?"

Kuroso squinted against the sun. Then he smiled. "Yes, Bwana. The escort."

"Good," said Kenton. He and Cynthia and Kuroso went down the hill together.

Kuroso moved on ahead of them and met the leader of the escort. Kenton heard them chattering in the Kinoro dialect as he came up. It was not one he understood, except for a few isolated words; his communication with Daum had always been in English, and Kuroso had always interpreted for him with others.

Kuroso turned as they came up. He pointed to the leader of the escort, a tall, black, well-muscled man wearing a tuft of lion mane on each ankle, loin-clothed and carrying a hide shield and a long spear.

"This is Ntala," said Kuroso. "He says the Wild Goats have caused much trouble. But that they will not dare attack him and his fighting men."

"Good," said Kenton. "Tell him to spread his men out along both sides of the column and to keep it totally surrounded."

Kuroso babbled for a moment in the Kinoro dialect.

The tall, black man nodded and gestured to his followers. They took up positions as flankers and a rear guard.

"Now we're all right," Kenton said with relief in his voice. "We'll have to camp out tonight, but by this time tomorrow we'll be in Daum's village."

They entered the jungle, following a fairly wide track. Along its twisting course, there were places that looked as if a hurricane had smashed through. Cynthia pointed to them curiously trees bowled over and uprooted, thick stalks of bamboo the diameter of a man's thigh split in two.

"Elephant," Kenton told her. "The country's teeming with them. It's teeming with all sorts of game. You've seen what we've had to get through to get here. Well, that's why it's so isolated. Few hunters nowadays are determined enough to walk for game. The ones who are we respect enough to bring in here. They don't even make a dent in it. And Daum has given us exclusive rights; no other outfitters can hunt here. So you see why it's so important to keep our franchise. Once this business of nationality is settled and The Wild Goats are put down, it's like money in the bank."

She held his hand. "Do you intend to keep on hunting and guiding after we're married?"

Kenton sighed.

"No," he said. "No, I don't. The game's going too quickly as it is. And besides ... "

"Besides ? " He smiled at her

"I won't be free to entertain the female clients any longer in the style to which they've become accustomed."

"Then the outcome of the trip really doesn't matter to you, does it?"

"Of course it does. If it's successful, I get an extra thousand. It'll be a nice nest egg to use for setting up housekeeping."

Now there was no light getting through the foliage of the immense trees that grew around them. It was as if they had entered a perpetual twilight. Both of them fell silent. Cynthia shivered. "It certainly is gloomy in here," she said, finally breaking the stillness. "To think that lurking in that mess there might be the men who killed Guido. Who'd want to kill us why? What have we done to be so bated for?"

"We're white," said Kenton dryly.

"Is that a crime?"

"I don't know," Kenton said. "A lot of us haven't exactly covered ourselves with glory, you know. The sins of the fathers. They're coming home to roost, those chickens, quicker than we can cope with them."

"But in such a horrible way ... "

"Most Africans don't approve of such atrocities. Most Africans are decent, easy-going people if they're fairly treated. Things like The Wild Goats are the exception rather than the rule ... "

They came to a clearing. It was wide, perhaps two hundred yards, and thickly grassed, with a soft green turf not unlike that of a common.

"What a lovely place," Cynthia said, looking at the shafts of sunlight that entered here.

"It's where we'll camp," said Kenton. "Then tomorrow, on to Daum's." He turned. "Kuroso! Tell Ntala and his men that we'll camp here."

"Yes, Bwana," Kuroso said. He turned and chattered to Natala. Natala nodded gravely. In his own turn, he said something to the rest of the escort.

Kuroso held out his hand. "Bwana, I think perhaps I'd better clean your gun. I failed to do it in the excitement yesterday."

Automatically, Kenton handed him the rifle. Barbara Vail came up just then. "Clean hers, too," Kenton ordered.

"Yes, Bwana," Kuroso said meekly. He took Barbara's rifle as well.

Barbara was panting slightly, her shirt open to the waist, revealing bra and the crowded upper slopes of her breasts. She drew her arm across her sweating forehead. "Whew. I'm glad to take a break. I've sweated out a lot of gin today."

"Where's' Marion?"

Barbara shrugged. "Sitting down, resting. We're not speaking."

Kuroso came up again. "Don't you want me to clean the pistol, too, Bwana?"

Kenton stared at him. "It hasn't been fired."

"Perhaps it has got sand in the mechanism."

"No, it's all right; I just checked it a while ago when I gave it to Miss Blake."

"Still, I think it needs cleaning." Before Cynthia could move, Kuroso had unsnapped the holster flap and lifted out the pistol. He stuck it in his loin cloth He smiled at Barbara.

"You're a very tempting morsel with your shirt open that way," he said.

Kenton froze. "Kuroso," he said softly.

Kuroso turned. "Yes, Bwana?"

"Kuroso, what do you mean by talking to the white memsahib like that?"

"Oh, she and I are on very intimate terms, aren't we, my dear?" Kuroso put out a hand and cupped one of Barbara's breasts in it.

Peter Kenton stared at his gunbearer. "Take your hand off her," he said harshly.

Kuroso bowed his head, as if he were about to comply. But what he said was, "No, Bwana," and he did not move his hand.

"Kuroso ... " Kenton said, and a horrible certainty was beginning to dawn on him.

Kuroso put his arm about Barbara. His big hand squeezed her breast. He smiled pleasantly at Kenton.

"That's right," he said softly. "They're all my men." He gestured. "Meet The Wild Goats."

Kenton let out a long breath.

"So," was all he said.

Cynthia gave a little scream, and her hand flew to her breast. Barbara stiffened in Kuroso's embrace.

Kenton put his arm around Cynthia.

"All right, Kuroso," he said calmly. "But tell me why? After all these years why?"

Kuroso drew himself up.

"Because," he said, "I will not rest until every drop of white blood is drained from Kinoro country. Including that of my brother Daum." His lips twisted. "He and his sister. They rule why? Because they are half white. It makes them ... superior. While I, since my youngest days, have been lorded over by them, treated as dirt, because none of the white blood flowed in my veins..." His voice turned bitter. "When I became a man, I tried to escape from them. I left the Kinoro country, thinking never to return. I left seeking a place where there were no whites. But I encountered the elephant, and you saved me. I was grateful and unwittingly exchanged one servitude for another."

He broke off and then began again.

"There is no other way," he said. "The whites will always keep us in servitude if we do not kill them."

"No, Kuroso. White and black can work together. Will work together, if you give them a chance."

Kuroso looked straight at him. "No chance, Bwana."

Kenton was silent for a moment. Then: "What do you intend to do with us?"

"Of course you all must die," Kuroso said easily. "But first my men will have the women. And I think it will be amusing for you to watch that, Bwana. So we will let you live until it is over. In fact, you will be the last to die. I myself will attend to the killing of you. There are a thousand petty humiliations I have to revenge myself for. The many times I've waited, knowing you were in the brush with a white woman, knowing what was going on and that I'd be slaughtered if I touched her, though she might have rubbed herself on me and made advances, and though my body might be aching with need." He paused. "The thousands of orders, the Kuroso do this, Kuroso fetch that. Well, I was your servant then, but no longer. Now, I am master. Now you will address me as Bwana."

He turned, chattered to Ntala.

Two men stepped forward, seized Kenton. They dragged him to a tree at the edge of the clearing.

"Peter," Cynthia called. Her voice trembled.

Kenton tried to answer. He tried to call to her to run, to make them kill her while trying to escape, but a hand clamped over his mouth. He tried to fight, but he was held in an iron grip. He felt rope cutting into his flesh as he was tied to a tree.

Throughout all this, Marion sat apathetically on a box of goods, seemingly unaware of what was going on about her.

A dark warrior strode to Cynthia, pinned her arms. She struggled, kicked and fought. Laughing, another walked up to her and fastened his hand in her blouse. He ripped, and the blouse came away. The two African's stared, impressed, at the white skin thus revealed. The one who had torn the blouse hooked his fingers in Cynthia's bra. Again he pulled, and the bra split between the cups and fell away. The African smiled and his big, callused hand touched Cynthia's breasts.

Cynthia froze for a moment. Then, accurately and with devastating force, she kicked him.

The man screamed and bent over. He ran around and around the clearing like that, hunched and howling. The others roared.

Another warrior seized Marion and pulled her to her feet. She came numbly, seeming not to understand that anything was happening. The warrior began to tug at her clothes. She did not offer any resistance.

Barbara wrenched away from Kuroso. She faced the big man. "Wait a minute!" she snapped. "Leave Marion alone!"

Kuroso laughed at her. "You're no longer in any position to give orders. Take off your clothes. My warriors want women, and women they shall have."

"I'm not afraid of your warriors," Barbara said. "I can handle all thirty of them. And you, too."

"I don't doubt it," said Kuroso. "You'll get your chance."

like children unwrapping Christmas presents, the men of the secret society now tore the clothes off the women. Kenton, bound and gagged, watched as, naked except for their boots, the three women were herded into the center of the clearing. Cynthia had her arms crossed over her body, trying to shield it. Barbara stood proudly erect, breasts outthrust. Marion seemed unaware even that she was naked. She stood numbly, with her hands at her sides.

Suddenly Barbara stepped out of the group. She looked at the men. "We might as well make this a real party," she said. "Why don't you break out the whiskey, Kuroso?"

He stared at her. "What?"

"We've got a hell of a lot of whiskey. Why don't you get it out and let your men have it."

"Keep quiet," Kuroso said savagely. "I don't want them in the whiskey."

"You mean " Barbara asked, "you don't want them doing this?" And she pantomimed drinking from a bottle.

The men of The Wild Goats watched her. An excited chatter went up from them as they got the gist of her meaning. Kuroso whirled on them and snapped something. But while he did it, Barbara was pointing at the locker that contained the whiskey. It was the box on which Marion had sat.

The men argued with Kuroso. Kuroso shouted at them, and they fell silent, but there was an element of sullenness in their silence then.

And while Kuroso's attention was diverted, Barbara strode to the locker and flung it open. She took out a bottle, uncorked it, put it to her mouth and drank deeply.

Then she lowered it and faced the crowd, unashamed and taunting.

"All right," she said. "Who's going to be first?"

She raised the bottle and drank again.

The men of The Wild Goats moved forward as one. Drawn not by the woman, but by what was in the locker. Kuroso shouted at them, but they paid no attention. Gibbering excitedly, they ran to the locker and each seized a bottle.

Kuroso grabbed Barbara by the arm.

"All right," he grated. "They'll be drunk when they take you now. It'll be that much worse for you."

"I don't care," Barbara said. She still had the bottle. "I'm drunk myself. And I'm going to be drunker. I always said this was the way I wanted to go out." She raised the bottle to drink from it again, and Kuroso dashed it from her hand.

The men were busy uncorking bottles. For the moment, the women were forgotten.

But only for a moment.

The whiskey hit the Kinoro immediately. They drank deeply and immoderately, and the effects were apparent at once. They became noisy. They set up a wild, eerie chant. They danced and brandished spears and shields.

It was like a scene from hell. The frightened bearers huddled in a knot to one side. The three naked women were in the middle. And thirty painted black men danced and chanted around them.

The men danced up and touched the breasts of the women and danced away. They danced back and touched the bellies of the women and danced away. Kuroso stood stiffly, his face a disapproving mask. The men danced up and each in turn touched each woman again, lower this time, and danced away.

Kuroso snapped something at them. Now Ntala danced up and seized Barbara. He threw her to the ground, roughly. She landed on her back and made no effort to rise.

Ntala danced around her once. Then he threw spear and shield aside.

Bound to the tree, Kenton watched it sickly.

This was, apparently, a ritual, to be followed precisely.

One woman at a time.

Cynthia and Marion were untouched. Only Barbara was being harmed.

A dark body would cover hers. It would stay there for moments. Then it would roll away. Another warrior would dance up, drunkenly. He would dance around Barbara twice. Then he would throw aside his gear and attack her.

She never let out a sound. She did not scream; she did not resist.

One after another. Five.

Ten.

Fifteen.

And twenty. And twenty-five. And thirty ... And then it was over.

And the warriors, waiting, had had ample time to get very, very drunk.

Barbara Vail's body was a white blur on the green grass. It lay numbly, inertly for moments. Then it stirred. She rolled over on her stomach, crawled across the grass. Towards Kuroso. She crawled to him. Clawed at his feet, begging, as if for help, for mercy. She was trying to rise and could not.

Instinctively, Kuroso bent and took her arm. Her silver-blonde hair was a frowsy tangle now; bruises shone livid on her white flanks and thighs. Blood dripped from the reopened scratches on her breasts.

"Kuroso," Kenton heard her whimper. "Kuroso, please ... "

Kuroso laughed, as he pulled her to her feet.

"Now," he said, "the white woman begs, and it is a pleasant sound to hear..."

"Kuroso ... " Barbara's legs seemed made of rubber. She sagged against him.

Then suddenly she straightened up, perfectly in control of herself. And in her hand she held the pistol snatched from the waistband of his loincloth.

She stood so close to Kuroso that no one else could see the pistol except Kenton, from his position across the clearing. "Don't move," she rasped, "and don't speak."

Kuroso stood as if chiseled from dark stone.

None of the other men of The Wild Goats appeared to notice anything wrong. They were very drunk. Several of them had already passed out. Three of them had seized Marion and had pushed her to the ground. They were not dancing around her, they were arguing over her. She lay inertly, as if in a coma. Cynthia was watching in horror.

"It won't do you any good," Kuroso said in a conversational tone, showing no fear as he looked down at the gun. "If you shoot me, my men will tear you to ribbons."

"But at least you won't be here to see it," Barbara said. "You could have had a good life, Kuroso. Do you know what I had in mind? I'm very wealthy, you know. We could have lived like kings in France. In France nobody worries about color. You Would have been honored as an African nobleman. That was what I had in mind, Kuroso. But you ruined that. You betrayed us when we trusted you. And if I shoot you, I will shoot you in the belly and in the lower bowels, and it will take you a long time to die. This is a Magnum. It will tear a great hole in you, but you'll live for quite a while."

Kuroso said nothing.

"You didn't count on this, did you, Kuroso?" Barbara went on. "You didn't think any woman could be raped that many times and still have strength enough to fight back, did you? You should have known me better than that, Kuroso. Now tell your men to let go of Marion."

"They won't listen to me," Kuroso said. For the first time, his voice trembled. "They're very drunk and they won't listen. If I try to stop them, they'll tear me apart, too." His big hands clenched and unclenched. "Why did you have to show them the liquor? Why did you have to think of that?"

"Because I'm smart," said Barbara Vail. "Tell them to let Marion alone..."

Her finger was tight on the trigger. Kuroso stared down at the gun for a moment. Then he snapped a string of commands at the three men still arguing over Marion.

The three were very drunk. They ignored him. Suddenly one pulled a knife from his loincloth. He lashed out with it, opening the abdomen of another. The wounded man looked down in astonishment at his belly and gave a great scream.

Instantly the clearing was in a turmoil. The drunken warriors heaved themselves to their feet and stood dazedly, spears brandished. Then they saw what had happened. The clearing crackled with noise as they all chattered at once. The third man seized the man with the knife and wrestled with him. They almost trampled Marion, who lay still. The wounded man kept on screaming, his hand across his belly.

Everything was forgotten but the fight. The drunken warriors rushed to the fight, clotted in a knot around the combatants. Dissension broke out among the onlookers.

"Cynthia," Barbara snapped. "Quick! Untie Kenton." She held the gun steady on Kuroso. "And don't you make a sound."

Cynthia ran across the clearing. She fumbled with the ropes. Kenton felt the ties that held him loosen. He snatched away the gag.

His hands and legs were stiff, but not so stiff that he couldn't pick up a forgotten spear.

"Barbara!" he snapped. "When I give the word, shoot. And then run and don't look back! You, too, Cynthia."

His words were lost in the babble of the knot of men around Marion. Kenton knew that in order to save her, he was going to have to go in and get her out.

Kuroso was staring at the gun with horror. He looked at Kenton.

"Bwana," he called, his voice trembling.

Kenton stared at him an instant, his face working. Then he said harshly, "Now."

The roar of the gun and Kuroso's scream jarred the clearing.

At that moment Kenton charged with his spear into the knot of men.

The native bearers took that as their cue to bolt in the opposite direction from Cynthia and Barbara. The crash of their going added further to the confusion.

Kenton saw startled, painted faces all around, drunken eyes trying to focus for action. Somebody thrust a spear at him; he parried it. Somebody lunged with a knife. He drove the spear in between ribs and left it. Then he bent and scooped up Marion, but now he was ringed in. He would not make it, he knew.

Ntala loomed above him, raising a spear, preparing for the downward thrust. Kenton instinctively turned so that the point would not hit Marion.

From the edge of the clearing, the Magnum barked.

Ntala's face disappeared in a wash of blood.

The Wild Goats yelled and dispersed. The Magnum thundered again. Another man fell.

Kenton saw his rifle. He ran to it and scooped it up.

A couple of warriors threw their spears. One slashed his arm, the other whirred harmlessly by.

It was hard to work the bolt with Marion on his shoulder. But she seemed to be unconscious. He managed it. The rifle thundered as he shot from the hip. He did not wait to see the effects of his shot. He whirled and ran, and the Magnum sounded again, giving him covering fire.

He had to leap over a writhing, twisting body in the center of the clearing. It was Kuroso, his hands clutching his lower belly. He raised his contorted face as Kenton cleared him. "Bwana," he called feebly. "I die. Help me."

Kenton sucked in a deep breath and ran on.

Then he was in the jungle.

Ahead of him he saw the white body of Cynthia weaving through the almost impenetrable growth. Barbara was beside him, the smoking gun in her hand. "I told you I wanted to hunt men," she snapped. "What about Marion? Is she all right?"

"She seems to be out cold. I don't know how far I can get her. They'll be after us in a minute."

"Let her down," said Barbara.

Kenton lowered Marion. She was still numb and dazed and gave no sign of knowing where she was. But she stood on her own feet.

"Damn it," snarled Barbara, "wake up!"

Savagely, she slapped Marion in the face.

That did it. A light came back into Marion's eyes. She stared at Barbara. And then slapped Barbara back. "You did it," she whimpered. "You're responsible for Guido's death."

"I'm responsible for a lot of things," Barbara grated. "Now, damn it, run," and she gave Marion a push. Then she took Marion's hand. "Come on, I'll help you."

They slid as best they could through the tangled network of creepers, and bamboo, and briar vines. The naked flesh of the women was vulnerable; branches and thorns ripped Kenton's clothes, clawed at the women's breasts, buttocks and thighs.

They could hear no sound of a pursuit, but they kept on anyhow. "Probably," Kenton whispered to the others, "they're too drunk even to settle on what to do now. Barbara, you saved our lives by remembering that whiskey."

"It seemed logical at the time," she said in an offhand way. They had stopped to listen and to rest. Kenton stared at her, shaking his head in admiration.

Her silver-blonde hair was a frowsy tangle; her breasts were crisscrossed with stripes of blood; her body was blue and green with bruises put there by the brutal hands of The Wild Goats. She had been through enough to kill any ordinary woman three times over, and she did not even seem to be tired. In fact, her eyes were shining oddly, and he could not shake off the weird feeling that she was enjoying this whole affair immensely.

Cynthia was calm, but utterly exhausted. She lay panting on the ground, her hair also a tangle, her body bleeding from a hundred abrasions. Marion had come out of her catatonic trance when Barbara had slapped her; now, breath whistling through her nostrils, legs shaky, and bleeding like the others, she seemed to be in possession of herself.

"I think we'll camp here for the night," Kenton said, thinking the situation over. "Well get nowhere in the jungle in the dark."

He checked his situation. He had a full load in the rifle, except for the couple of cartridges he'd fired. There were a few more cartridges in his trouser pocket, where he habitually carried spares. They had no water, no food, and did not dare build a fire. He did not think The Wild Goats would come after them in the dark, being drunk and knowing he had the rifle, but in the morning they would sober, and then they would be implacable. Kenton had no illusions. He was good in the jungle, damned good for a white man, but not the equal of the natives. The Wild Goats would have no trouble tracking them in daylight, and they would come swiftly, much more swiftly than he could push three naked women through the jungle.

Moreover, he was lost. Completely and irretrievably lost. He could not even see the stars through the dense canopy of jungle foliage.

He voiced none of his doubts to the women. But he took four of his spare cartridges and transferred them from one pocket to the other. They were his last reserve; he would not use them on their enemies. But if they were caught again, not even Barbara could make a miracle happen a second time.

He took off his shirt and draped it around Cynthia. She looked up at him wordlessly, and he bent and kissed her gently on the lips. Then the four of them huddled together in a tangled mound of naked and semi-naked flesh against the night chill that was seeping into the jungle. Kenton put Cynthia in the middle, between himself and Barbara, and Marion huddled up to his other side.

Barbara stroked her hand across Cynthia and then over Kenton's chest. "If everybody weren't so damned tired," she laughed, "this would be a wonderful setup for an orgy."

"Thirty men," Kenton said. "Weren't they enough for you?"

"Just barely," said Barbara lightly. "After all, they were lacking in, shall we say, finesse."

She was silent for a moment. Then she spoke more seriously.

"Marion?"

"Yes."

"Marion, I'm sorry about Guido. Kenton hasn't said so, but I'm afraid there's a good possibility that those jerks back there will get their hands on us again tomorrow. If they do ... I want you to know that I'm sorry. I'm sorry about a lot of things."

Marion's voice was calmer, more self-controlled.

"I'm sorry, too," she said. "When ... when Guido went out of the tent with that rifle ... just before it happened ... he told me. He told me that he was taking it out to kill you with it. And ... and I didn't even try to stop him."

The small clearing was silent again for a few moments. Then Barbara said, "Forget it. I'm glad to see that Guido had that much guts. If I'd known that, I wouldn't have been so hard on him." Her voice trailed off. Then she said, "I've got a bullet left in this gun. If they get us again tomorrow, Marion, I'll take care of you. I have always tried to, in my own way."

"Don't worry," Kenton said with a confidence he did not feel. "They won't get us again tomorrow." He thought of the four cartridges in his pocket. "Now let's get some sleep." i

It was easier said than done. The jungle was a cacophony of hunting noises as nocturnal animals stalked their prey. Once, in the distance, Kenton thought he heard the shouting of men, but he could not be sure; it faded and he attributed it to his imagination. Long before daylight, the night animals yielded to those of the day, and the dawn songs of a thousand jungle birds and the chatter of monkeys made a new din.

Gradually, light filtered into the clearing. The naked women arose and stretched themselves stiffly. Barbara yawned. "Nothing like a good night's sleep," she said sardonically. "Hadn't we better get going?"

"Yes, right away," Kenton said. He helped Cynthia to her feet. Even in her pitiable condition, he thought she was beautiful. Gently, wordlessly, he touched with his fingers the tip of one of her breasts that peeped through a great rip in the shirt he'd given her. She put her hand on his and held it tight against the breast without speaking.

Then Kenton jerked his hand away and whirled, bringing up the gun.

There was sound in the jungle that was not animal sound. It was the low murmur of talking men. And not far away. Not far away at all.

"Kenton!" a voice called through the jungle. "Bwana Kenton!"

Kenton and Barbara looked at each other, and he saw the horror stirring in the girl's eyes.

The voice was exactly like that of Kuroso.

Kenton and the rest stood frozen.

"Bwana Kenton," the voice called again, closer. Kenton tensed his finger on the trigger of the rifle. There was a crackling in the brush now, closer; and it was too late to run.

All right, Kenton thought. Well, I'll take him with me anyhow. If he didn't die yesterday, he'll die today.

And then the sound was at the edge of he clearing and suddenly Kuroso's face appeared through the foliage, eyes wide and staring and fixed on Kenton, and Kenton aimed the rifle.

And then dropped it again, muttering a curse.

It was Kuroso's face all right. It was Kuroso's head. But it had no body. At first it seemed to float in space. Then Kenton saw.

It was impaled on the end of a spear.

"Bwana Kenton," the voice that could have been that of the dead man called from behind the head. "Don't shoot. It is I, Daum, who calls to you."

"Daum," Kenton said, and all at once the strength went out of him.

And then Daum appeared. It was he who carried the spear that bore the head of his half-brother. And as he emerged into the light, with two score men behind him, he could have been Kuroso reincarnated, Kuroso done over again but modeled in a lighter bronze.

like his half brother, Daum was a handsome giant. His skin was very nearly the color of hammered gold. Only his eyes were different, in a face that had his brother's features. His eyes were a clear, penetrating blue.

"It's' all right," Kenton said softly and shakily, and with gratitude in his voice. "It's all right. We're safe now."

They saw that Daum's followers also bore spears Most of them were ornamented very much like the one Daum carried.

Daum crossed the clearing. He wore a feathered headdress, plumage trailing down his back. His biceps were banded with gold; a girdle of leopard skin swathed his loins and dangled between oaken legs. He smiled at Kenton and put out his right hand; Kenton took it gratefully.

"Last night my scouts heard gunfire," Daum said. "They reported to me and thinking it was The Wild Goats, I led my men against them." He looked faintly puzzled. "It was an easy victory. We found several of them dead. My half-brother was still alive, but dying. I ... did not allow him to linger. The rest ... The rest were all very drunk. Too drunk to offer any resistance. The Wild Goats are gone, Kenton. Their heads are on our spears."

Barbara Vail stepped forward. Her eyes were wide and fixed on Daum, with a kind of startled fascination. She put out a hand toward him, then dropped it without touching him.

"You can thank the white woman for your eas.. victory," said Kenton. "Miss Vail, this is Chief Daum."

Daum's eyes swung to Barbara. They widened at the sight of her silver-blonde hair. They swept over her face, down the huge thrust of her breasts, down the curved belly and the arching hips and the fine legs.

Daum's voice was an awed whisper.

"My mother," he said, "had hair like that."

Nothing could keep Barbara down for long.

"Well," she said flippantly, "as you can easily see, it's entirely natural."

Then she swayed; her legs crumpled, and she would have fallen if Daum had not caught her.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE VICTORY CELEBRATION HELD IN DAUM's VILLAGE on the second night thereafter was perhaps the most impressive spectacle Kenton had seen in his time in Africa.

Daum's village was huge and well-built; his father's knowledge of western construction had made it really a substantial city of mud-walled buildings. In the center of it was a square of perhaps two acres; and in the center of the square burned a bonfire. Around the bonfire, posts were implanted in the ground. Each post bore a head. The heads looked out with sightless eyes on the throng that crowded the square. From all over Daum's chiefdom his people had come in. Warriors in their best plumed and barbaric finery filled the square; the tall, handsome and straight-backed women of the Kinoro, naked except for an incredible number of bangles and beads and small girdles about their loins, mingled with them. All day long and now into the Bight there had been much drinking of pombe, the potent native beer. Drums kept up a constant, eerie thunder in the background.

A huge dais of permanent construction, canopied with brilliant woven matting, carpeted with the soft skins of lion and leopard, ran along one side of the square, commanding a view of all that went on. Cross-legged on this sat Daum. On his right sat Barbara. On his left sat his golden-skinned sister, Madeebe.

Barbara was dressed in the Kinoro fashion. She had pointedly declined Madeebe's offer of western clothes, which Marion and Cynthia had accepted. Barbara wore a stack of golden circlets about her neck; another stack on either arm. She wore, also, a string about her waist and a flap of leopard skin over her loins. And that was all. She looked quite as barbaric, quite as savage, as the magnificent tribal chief beside her.

A little further down the dais, Kenton sat with Marion and Cynthia. Cynthia was watching the spectacle in the square with fascination, as half a thousand warriors stamped with precision in a dance of victory about the fire and the impaled heads, plumes waving, lion-mane anklets trailing, tiny bells on their bodies jingling, dark skins gleaming in the firelight. The drums thundered; the women, breasts swaying and joggling, clapped their hands with precision to supplement the drums and kept up a droning chant.

Kenton heard Barbara say, "I'm glad you salvaged some of that gin, Daum. It'll take me a while to get used to pombe." She had a glass in her hand, and now she drank from it deeply and thrust it out. A servant refilled it immediately.

"Now," said Daum, as the dancers in the square came to an abrupt halt, "the victory dancing is over. Now begins the love dancing."

"Love dancing eh?" Barbara said. "Sounds interesting."

The square fell deathly silent. Suddenly a single woman moved out into the firelight. She was perfectly, exquisitely made. She wore only bangles and the leopard-skin flap. Firelight gleamed on bronze breasts, belly and buttocks.

She stood immobile for a moment. Then the drums began to tap very softly.

The woman began to sway, without moving her feel. The motion of her body set her breasts to doing a dance of her own. Their curved flesh joggled rhythmically, temptingly.

Then the motion traveled to her hips. First they swayed slowly and erotically from side to side. Then they took up a more circular path, traveling sideways and in and out. The woman's feet moved apart.

The drums beat faster.

The woman began to stamp in rhythm to them. Her head was thrown back now, eyes closed, teeth gleaming. Her breasts bounced, her belly rippled. The message of her hips was universal, a begging to a lover.

Then a man danced out into the circle. He was a giant, as perfectly masculine as the woman was feminine. He was naked.

He danced around the woman in cadence to the drums. Then he confronted her. He danced up to her, slowly, teasingly, and they thrust their hips toward each other. He touched her lightly and then danced backward.

"My God," Kenton heard Barbara whisper. He looked at Cynthia. She was leaning forward, eyes shining with interest. Unconsciously, she had put one hand on her breasts.

The dance went on. Thrust, tease, and retreat.

Circling hips, bouncing breasts, spraddled legs. A courtship. Almost a lovemaking. The whole crowd about the square seemed to breathe in unison, heavily. Kenton was aware of the terrific erotic impact of the dance in his own being; he knew his own arousal. He put an arm about Cynthia automatically. He cupped her breast. She put her hand on his and pushed his palm hard against the soft flesh.

Suddenly, from the dais, there sounded a weird whoop. Kenton stared as Barbara, glass in hand, bounded into the circle of firelight. The other dancers paid no attention to her; they were too intent now on each other. The woman had discarded the leopard-skin girdle; she was as nude as the man.

Barbara spraddled her legs. A shudder went through her body. Her huge breasts, hard-nippled, rippled fantastically. Her hips shot out in a bump that was phenomenal, and then went into a slow, tantalizing grind. She had caught the exact rhythm of the drums, too. Her eyes were shining, glittering. She drained the glass and threw it into the fire. Then she seized her own breasts and began to dance.

The bangles on neck and wrists and ankles clinked and jingle. The dance Barbara did made the one the natives performed look weak by comparison. Her hips were never still; it was as if she had an invisible lover to whom she were giving her all.

"Daum!" she yelled. "Come on, Daum!"

Kenton, didn't know whether it was the gin he had drunk or the effect of the dance, the naked women, the firelight. But his own head was buzzing. His hand slipped inside Cynthia's dress. She gave a little moan as his fingers clasped a breast, toyed with a tip of it that was hard as stone. He felt her hand land on his thigh, high up, and her fingers dig into the hard flesh of it. On his other side, even Marion seemed to be stirred. She was fully alert now. Kenton saw her slide her hands under her own skirt. He wondered briefly if she were thinking of Guido, longing for him.

Then Daum gave a shrill, blood-chilling yell. He was off the dais, dancing into the center of the square. A similar shriek went up from the onlookers.

Daum danced toward Barbara, throwing away his leopard-skin girdle. She did-likewise, and danced toward Daum, naked, firelight glinting on her silver-yellow hair.

Daum danced straight up to Barbara. He was massive in the firelight. He touched her, danced away, danced back. She was bent backward, legs widespread. A strange, excited yelling was going up from the onlookers now.

Cynthia stirred restlessly on the dais; her hand slipped higher on Kenton's thigh, found him, paused there.

Daum danced up again to Barbara. Suddenly his big hands shot out, clasped Barbara's buttocks in an iron grasp. Daum pulled her to him. Barbara threw herself against him, arms circling his waist. Then she let herself go limp, and she dropped slowly to the ground, her weight dragging Daum down directly on top of her.

As if it were a signal, the square suddenly became full of men and women. They danced only perfunctorily. What they really wanted to do was make love.

And that's what they did. Five hundred couples of them.

Cynthia gave a groan. Her hands clawed at Kenton. Her mouth was turned up to his. He crushed his mouth down on her lips. Her tongue was a hot, wild animal attacking him. He bent her backward and down, pulling up the loose dress that was noticeably far too large for her.

She hooked him with a leg, yanking him to her. He unfastened the front of the dress while she clawed at his belt. He found the hard tips of her breasts and drew them into his mouth, one after the other. Her body rose beneath him, and there was for him again the warm embrace. He cupped her buttocks in his hands and held them up and drove at her with all his strength; and he could hear her moan even above the sound of the crowd.

Then he forgot the crowd, he forgot everything except the warm caress of her body and her hunger for him, his hunger for her; he turned himself into a machine, slamming against her relentlessly, and she squealed and cursed with the ecstasy of it, quite as savage now as Barbara, quite as savage as any woman out there in the square.

Marion sat rocking back and forth, her hands far up under her skirt, her knees close about her forearms. "Guido," she moaned in a rising voice. "Guido, Guido..."

The drums beat on inexorably. Kenton found that he had timed his body to them. Their beat was cleverly set in the exact rhythm of satisfaction.

Cynthia's body rose and twisted against his. She let out a piercing scream. Every muscle within her seemed to twang. Her legs were like iron bands about him.

And then his own excitement soared, and he knew again the gratification that was unlike anything he had experienced before, while out in the square the drums kept on and on and on ...

CHAPTER TWELVE

ESCORTED BY TWENTY-FIVE OF DAUM'S BEST WARRIORS, a white man and two women crested a hill and looked down on the government compound below. From the crest they could see the Land Rovers and the lorries still parked there.

"Well," said Kenton, "for all practical purposes, we're back in civilization."

"Yes," said Cynthia. She put her arm about him. "Thank God. No, I don't mean that. This trip has been the turning point of my life."

Kenton looked at Marion standing a little apart and lonely.

"Of all our lives," he said quietly, thinking of how Barbara had come to him the night before they had started back.

She had still worn the native garb, the bangles, the leopard girdle, nothing else. She smiled at him and sat down on the cot in his hut and lit a cigarette made of native tobacco. She did not even wince as she drew in the smoke.

"I'd like you to know I'm getting used to these things," she said.

"Yes," Kenton said, letting his eyes roam over her nudity. "You seem to have gone native with a ven-glance,"

Barbara stood up, taking a deep breath that moved her magnificent breasts. Simultaneously her face went very serious.

"Yes," she said, "I think I have." She crushed out the cigarette with a sandaled foot.

"I'm not going back with you, Kenton."

He was startled. "What?"

"I said I wasn't going back with you."

"But-"

She smiled. "Kenton, I've learned something on this trip. Do you know that I've always been an unhappy woman until now? A woman seeking something that she couldn't find, couldn't even articulate? I know what it was now, Kenton."

"What?"

Barbara looked at him without shame.

"Kenton, do you know what I really am? I never knew until now, either. But what I really am is a savage."

There was a moment of silence in the room. Then Kenton said quietly, "Yes, I think you really are."

"I know I am. I think like a savage; I have the same kind of loves and hates and sex drive, the same contempt for weakness, the same need for direct expression of whatever it is I feel. That's why I've been unhappy, Kenton all my life. Because I am a savage, and no matter how much money you've got, there's not much room in the world for savages any more, is there? Not unless they're willing to fool everyone into thinking they're really civilized."

She took a deep breath.

"For the first time, Kenton, I'm happy. Right here, living like this, I'm happy. For the first time, I feel I fit in."

She paused.

"Kuroso was right about one thing," she said. "Daum is fascinated by women with golden hair. He's asked me to marry him, Kenton."

Kenton stared at her.

"Daum already has ten wives."

Her face did not change expression.

"I know. But I'll be number one."

Kenton looked at her for a moment more, uncomprehending. "Barbara, are you sure you know what you're saying? To live shut off in a place like this, no contacts with the outside world..."

"I've had the outside world," she said bitterly. "Everything I've touched in the outside world, I've botched up. My own sister hates me, everybody I knew in the outside work! hates me. And if I go back to it, I won't change, Kenton. I'll still be a savage. And the place for a savage is not out there. It's here."

"Barbara-"

"Actually, I have very few requirements, Kenton. Food, liquor, excitement, danger, and sex. I can have all I can handle of all of them here." She gave him a curious half smile. "I've even learned to enjoy pombe."

"Then you have gone native."

"Yes, I've gone native. And I'm going to make sure I don't change." From under the girdle she took some folded papers. "I think that if you and Cynthia will witness my signature on these, they'll be quite legal

Marion might as well have it all and see how she-likes the headaches of managing it. Then she'll have no trouble finding someone to replace Guido and God help him, whoever he is. I know my sister. She's passive now. But when she gets the money " Kenton looked at the papers.

"When you sign these, Barbara, you can't go back."

"I don't want to go back." Suddenly she planted her feet wide apart, put her hands under her breasts and lifted them and stared at him with glittering eyes. The bangles around her neck and wrists gleamed as golden as her hair. "Look at me, Kenton," she rasped. "I am a savage."

Kenton stared at her.

"Yes," he said at last

Now, standing on the hill with his arm about Cynthia, he said, "Yes. We're all changed."

Marion turned to them a little impatiently. "Come on," she said. "Let's move. I've got a lot to do. I've got to get back to the United States. Arrange the transfer." Her eyes glittered. "Get my money."

Already a change was taking place in her. Her voice sounded exactly like that of Barbara.

"Yes," said Kenton, and they moved down the hill.

Crisp tamped tobacco into his pipe and said, "It's the most amazing story I've ever heard."

"Well, it's true."

"Then our hunting concession in the Kinoro country is safe."

"That's right. Only I won't be taking any more parties in there. Not regularly, anyhow."

"Oh?" said Crisp, arching his brows.

"I'm getting married," Kenton said, and he told Crisp about Cynthia.

"We hate to lose you," Crisp said. "You know that, Peter."

Kenton arose from his chair. "I know. I've been with the company a long time. But I can't continue to live in the bush and leave a wife at home..."

"Yes," Crisp said thoughtfully. Then he sighed. "Well, I suppose the time has come."

"What time?"

Crisp smiled around his pipe. "For me to retire. I've been giving it some thought lately. I don't see why I shouldn't. You can run the company from this desk, Peter but don't stay behind it too much. Really, it's more dangerous than the bush."

Kenton stared at him. "I just don't know what to say."

"Then don't say anything," said Crisp. "You've earned it."

Kenton was both exultant and thoughtful as he entered the door of his house on the outskirts of Nairobi. His whole manner of living had suddenly changed radically. He was not sure...

He went to the bar, got a glass and poured himself a drink. He wanted some ice in it.

"Kuroso!" he called automatically. The word seemed to vibrate in the empty room. Kenton looked down at his glass, biting his lip. Suddenly the house seemed very empty.

Then a voice said from the door to the bedroom, "He isn't here any more. But will I do?"

Kenton turned. Cynthia stood in the doorway. She wore only a thin robe. It was open all the way down the front, unbelted; and her white flesh gleamed in the dusky light.

Kenton drew in a deep breath. "Yes," he said softly, "you'll do." And he went to her quickly, knowing now that the house would never seem empty to him again.

THE END
Sin Safari ....(98k)    by William Kane




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