Ten hours later he stopped to bathe and drink and feed in an isolated marshy place, still a great distance from the true swamps.
This was one of the way stations on the old migratory road.
He had not been there for more than a few hours before the aircraft had rushed low overhead, filling the air with its buzzing roar, startling and angering Tukutela. In some vague way he associated this machine with the deadly danger of the hunters. It left the same foul stench on the air as the hunting vehicles he had encountered so often before, and he knew he could rest no longer in this place, the hunters were closing in.
The great swamps were his refuge, and he fled toward them.
"He won't stop now until he is into the swamps." Sean Courtney was squatting beside the spoor. "He's thoroughly alarmed, and we can't hope to catch him before he gets into them."
"How far?" Riccardo asked. Sean stood up and studied him as he replied.
"Eighty or ninety miles, Capo. Just a stroll." Riccardo wasn't looking well. There were dark sweat patches soaking through his shirt, and he seemed to have aged ten years in the last four days.
"What will we do if the old bugger keels over on us?" Sean wondered, then thrust that thought aside. "Okay, gang, we'll eat and sleep here.
Move on again at four."
He led them to the edge of the marsh, onto firm dry ground.
Fatigue and heat had dulled their appetites. They needed sleep more than food, and soon they were sprawled out in the shade like dead men.
Sean woke with the feeling that something was amiss; he sat up quickly, his hand already on the rifle, and swept a glance around to his feet. She was gone.
He strode out of the perimeter, and whistled for the sentry.
Pumula came in immediately.
"The donna," Sean demanded in Sindebele. "Where is she?"
"That way." Pumula pointed toward the river.
"You let her go?" Sean demanded.
"I thought she was going to the bush"-Pumula excused himself-"to relieve herself. I could not stop her."
Sean had already started to run down the hippo path into the him.
Sean was ten paces from the reeds that surrounded the largest and deepest of the pools, when he heard the splash of water ahead.
"This silly bitch is going to drive me crazy," he told himself as he burst out on the edge of the pool.
The pool was a hundred yards across, deep and green and still.
For all its comical appearance, the hippopotamus is the most dangerous animal in Africa. It has probably killed more human beings than all the other dangerous species put together. The old bulls are cantankerous and aggressive, a cow with a new calf will attack without provocation, and a bite from those gaping jaws whose tusks are adapted to shearing coarse river reeds will cut a man in two. The crocodile is a sly and efficient killer. This pool was the ideal haunt of both hippos and crocodiles, and Claudia Monterro was in it up to her waist.
Her wet clothing, shirt and panties and socks, all freshly washed, were draped over the reeds at the edge, and Claudia was facing away from him, leaning forward and with both hands working up a lather of soap in her hair.
The skin of her back was lightly tanned and flawless except for the pale line left by the strap of a bikini top across her shoulder blades. Her flanks were lean but elegantly shaped into the waist, and the knuckles of her spine just showed between the ridges of fine athletic muscle on each side of it.
"What the hell do you think you're doings" Sean snarled. She turned to face him, hands still in her soapy hair, eyes screwed up against the suds.
"Is this how you get your jollies?" she demanded, making not the slightest effort to cover her bosom. "You pervert, creeping and peeping?"
"Get your arse out of there before you get it bitten off by a croc." Her jibe had stung him, but even in his anger he saw that her breasts were better than he had guessed. The cold water made the points stick out at him.
"Stop gawking!" she yelled back at him. "And get lost!" She ducked her head under and then stood erect once again, soap lather streaming down her body, her hair shining and slick as a sheet of black silk over her shoulders.
"Get out of there, damn you, I'm not going to stand here arguing," he ordered.
"I'll get out when I'm good and ready."
Sean plunged straight into the pool and reached her before she could avoid him. He seized her arm, and though it was slippery with soap, he dragged her toward the bank, kicking and lashing at him with her free hand, spitting with fury.
"You bastard, I hate you! Leave me alone!"
He controlled her easily with one hand. In the other, he still held his big double-barreled rifle. His khaki shorts ran water and his velskoen boots squelched as he dragged her out. He snatched up her wet shirt and threw it at her.
"Get dressed!"
"You've got no right! I'm not going to accept this, you brutal ham-handed... you've hurt my arm." She proffered her upper arm, exhibiting his red finger marks on the skin, holding the wet shirt loosely at her side, shaking and pale with rage.
Strangely, it was her navel that drew his eyes. It stared accusingly at him from the flat plain of her midriff like a cyclopean eye, a perfect dimple at that moment more erotic than even the dense triangular bush of sodden hair beneath it. He dragged his eyes away. She was so angry she seemed totally oblivious of her nudity.