Leopard Hunts in Darkness - Smith Wilbur (книга бесплатный формат .TXT) 📗
"The tale is not yet told," said Vusamanzi primly, and placed a hand on Tungata's shoulder to prevent him from rising.
"There is more?"
"There is indeed. We must go back a little, for when Taka' Taka and his companions and the traitor dog first arrived in these hills to begin the search, my grandfather Insutsha grew immediately suspicious. Everybody knew of Taka' Taka They knew he did nothing without purpose.
So Insutsha sent three of his prettiest young wives to where Taka' Taka was camped, bearing small gifts of eggs and sour ns and said milk, and Taka-Taka answered the girls" quest io that he had come into these hills to hunt rhinoceros Vusamanzi paused, glanced at Craig, and elaborated, Taka Taka was also a renowned liar. However, the prettiest of the wives waited for the traitor dog of a Matabele at the touched bathing, pool of the river. Under the water she that thing of which it is said, the harder it becomes, the softer becomes the brain of the man who wields it and the it waggles that fast waggles his tongue. With t Ac faster girl's hand on his man spear, the Matabele traitor spilled out boasts and promises of cattle and gold coins, and the pretty wife ran back to my grandfather's village!
Vusamanzi had all their attention again, and he clearly relished it.
"My grandfather was thrown into terrible consternation.
Taka-Taka had come to desecrate and rob the king's tomb.
Insutsha fasted and sat vigil, he threw the bones and stared Ulto the water-divining vessel, and finally he called his four apprentice witch, doctors to him. One of the apprentices was my own father. They went in the full moon and opened the king's tomb and made sacrifice to placate the king's ghost, and then, with reverence, they bore him away, and they resealed the empty tomb. They took the king's body to a safe place and deposited it there, with the beer-pots of bright stones although my father told me that in their haste one of the beer-pots was overturned and broken, and that they gathered up the fallen stones and placed them in a zebra-skin bag, leaving the broken shards in the tomb."
"Both the apprentices and Taka-Taka overlooked one of the diamonds," Tungata said softly. "We found the clay shards and a single diamond where they had left it."
"Now you may go to sleep if you are still weary, Nkosi." Vusamanzi gave his permission with a gleam in his rheumy old eyes. "What? You want to hear more? There is nothing else to tell. The tale is finished."
"Where did they take the king's body?" Tungata asked.
"Do you know the place, my wise and revered old father?" Vusamanzi grinned. "It is indeed an unexpected pleasure to find respect and honour for age in the young people of this new age, but to answer your question, son of Kumalo: I do know where the king's body is. The secret was passed to me by my father!
"Can you lead me to the place?"
"Di I not te you that mis place in which we now sit "14 is sacred? It is sacred for good reason!
"My God I"
"Herel both Craig and Tungata exclaimed together I and Vusamanzi cackled happily and hugged his bony old knees, well pleased with their reaction.
"In the morning I will take you to view the site of the king's grave," he promised, "but now my throat is dry with too much talking. Pass the beer-pot to an old man." hen Craig woke, the first morning light was diffusing through the hole in the roof of the I! Tcavern, milky and blued by the smoke from the cooking-fire where the girls were busy preparing the morning meal.
While they breakfasted, and with Vusamanzi's reluctant permission, Craig related in English the outlines of the tale of Loberigula's reburial to Sarah and Sally-Anne. They were both enthralled, and immediately on fire to join the expedition.
"It is a difficult place to reach," the old man buffed, "and it is not for the eyes of mere womenfolk." But Sarah smiled "s head and whispered in her sweetest, stroked the old man his ear, and finally, after a further show of gruff severity, he relented.
Under Vusamanzi's direction, the men made a few simple preparations for the expedition. In one of the ancillary branches of the cavern beneath a flat stone was a hidey, hole containing another kerosene lantern, two native axes and three large coils of good-quality nylon rope which the old man clearly prized highly.
"We liberated this fine rope from the army of Smithy during the bush war," he boasted.
"One great blow for freedom," Craig murmured, and Sally-Anne frowned him to silence.
They set off down one of the branches of the cavern, Vusamanzi leading and carrying one of the lanterns followed by Tungata with one of the rope coils, the girls in the centre, and Craig with a second coil of rope and the orb r lantern in the rear.
Vusamanzi strode along the passage as it narrowed and twisted. When the passage forked, he did not hesitate.
Craig opened his clasp-knife and marked the wall of the right, hand fork, and then hurried to catch up with the rest of the party.
The system of tunnels and caves was a three-dimensional maze. Water and seepage had mined the limestone of the hills until it was as perforated as Gruy&e cheese. In some places they scrambled down rock scree, and at one point they climbed a rough, natural staircase of limestone. Craig blazed every twist and turn of the way. The air was cold and dank and musky with the smell of guano. Occasionally there was a flurry of shadowy wings around their heads, and the shrill squeal of disturbed bats echoed down the passageways.
After twenty minutes they came to an almost vertical drop of glossy smooth limestone, so deep that the lantern glow did not reach the depths. Under Vusamanzi's direction, they secured the end of one coil of nylon rope to a pillar of limestone, and one at a time slid down fifty feet to the next stage. This was a vertical fault in the rock formation, where two geological bodies had shifted slightly and formed an open crack in the depths of the earth. It was so narrow that he could touch either wall, and in the lantern light Craig could just make out the bright eyes of the bats hanging inverted from the rocky roof above them.
