The captain nodded.
"And there is a trunk in your room. Inside there is another bag with another set of contents. You will follow our usual procedure with that, turning the trunk over to my man who will meet you at your next port. He will fly it to Busati."
"I see," the captain said.
Butler reached into his pocket and withdrew a half dozen of the foil packages of chloroform pads. "Take these," he said. "They may be helpful in keeping your cargo… let us say, pliable."
The captain stuck the packs in his pocket "Thank you. By the way," he said, with a small smile at the corners of his mouth, "May I make use of this cargo?"
The Busati chief of staff thought a moment, thought of Hillary Butler, thought of her warm white breast, thought of her next home in the house behind the pearl door button, and shook his head. "Not this time, Captain," he said. Hillary Butler was the last one, and random rape simply would not do. There just was not enough terror in it, at least not for one whose ancestors had given his ancestors their slave name. Nothing but gang rape under his own personal supervision would suffice. For a starter.
"Sorry," he said.
The captain shrugged.
"Now don't forget with the other bag," Butler said. "Ten minutes out to sea, dump her. The current should run her ashore sometime tomorrow."
"It shall be as you say, Colonel."
"Oh, by the way, it's General now. I've been promoted."
"I'm sure you're worthy."
"I try to be," Butler said.
He took his car keys, trotted lightly down the gangplank and returned to his car. For the first time since he'd reached America, he turned his air conditioner up high.
Two hours later, he was back in the 707 jet, on his way home to Busati.
The last name on his list, he thought. The legend was coming true.
For a moment, a random thought of that American Remo and the elderly Oriental intruded on his mind, but he rejected it. By now, they would either be out of Busati or in the custody of the troops, in which case he would see that they were exiled from the country for good. The Loni legend was to be his alone to fulfil.
CHAPTER NINE
"Once we lived in palaces. Our buildings stretched to the clouds. Our land was rich and we were at peace."
The girl turned away from Remo who lay on his back on a hillock, chewing a piece of grass. "And now, this is our world," she said bitterly, waving her arm across the field of her view. "A land of thatched huts and poverty, of ignorance and disease. A land in which we are hunted by the Hausa like game animals. We are a people from whose men the courage has been bred out, like milk-giving is bred into a cow."
Remo rolled on his left side to look at the girl. She was tall and lithe, and silhouetted against the white daylight sky of Africa, she seemed blacker than was her dark skin. She wore only a short white robe in the fashion of a Grecian toga, but its outlines, too, looked dark against the hot white sky. Her back was toward Remo, and out in front of her, down at the bottom of the hill, he could see the grubby little camp which now represented the once-great Empire.
"Could be worse," Remo said.
"How?" The girl turned and came to Remo, and in a smooth graceful motion slid down to the grass alongside him. "How could it be worse for my Loni people?"
"Take my word for it," Remo said. "You complain that civilization has kind of passed your people by. Well, you haven't missed a thing. I come from what they call civilization, and I prefer it here. At least, if you stay out of the Hausas way, you've got some kind of peace."
He reached forward and took her left hand in his. She recoiled involuntarily from him, then tried to relax, but Remo released her hand. Princesses of the Loni Empire were virgins till they were wed; they knew not of men and no man entered into them until it was by ceremony and custom ordained. His was probably the first male hand which had ever touched the beautiful artist's hand of Princess Saffah of the Loni Empire.
"Do not release me," she said. "It feels warming, your hand. And you are right, it is peaceful here. But peacefulness is like rain. It is nice, but always to have it pressed upon you is quite another thing."
She took Remo's hand up in hers, silent for a moment as if shocked by her own boldness. "You, for instance," she said. "You lie here now, sucking grass like a cow, and talking of how lovely peace is, and you know that as soon as you can you will go back to this world you hate."
Remo said nothing; she was right. When he found and freed the slave girls and discovered what had happened to James Forsythe Lippincott, he would leave.
"Could I stay if I wanted?" he finally said.
"I do not know. The legend is silent"
"Oh, yeah. The legend."
Since he and Chiun first had arrived two days before, they had heard of little else but the legend. Chiun had been installed, seven steamer trunks and all, in the finest thatched hut the Loni had to offer. Princess Saffah who ruled this camp as her two younger princess sisters ruled the other two Loni encampments in the nearby hills, had moved out to make room for Chiun.
"Dammit, Chiun, that's not right," Remo had said. "Move into some other place instead of moving people around."
"Not right?" Chiun said. "What is not right? That the people of the Loni should not honour a man who has come thousands of miles across the seas to repay a debt centuries old and to put them back into power? They should not give up a hut to a man who will give them palaces?"
"Yeah, but moving their princess?"
"Princess? Suddenly you are a royalist. Remember this then. Princesses and princes and kings and queens come and go. But there is only one Master of Sinanju."
"Talk about the world being lucky," Remo said sarcastically.
"Yes, the world is lucky to have such a one. But even luckier are you who have been permitted to bask in the warmth of the Master's magnificence."
And so Chiun had moved into the hut of Princess Saffah.
In quiet protest, however, Remo refused. He insisted upon moving into one of the smaller huts of the village. The first night he was cold. The second night he was wet. The morning of the third day, he walked into Chiun's hut with his blanket in his hand.
"I thought you might be lonely," Remo said, "so I decided to move in to keep you company."
"I am happy you think so much of me," Chiun said. "But please, I would not want you to do anything against your principles."
"No, that's all right, Chiun. I've made my mind up. I'll stay."
"No," Chiun said. "I insist."
"Sorry, Chiun, I'm not leaving. I'm going to stay here and keep you company whether you like it or not."
"You are leaving this instant," Chiun said, and then called the entire Loni village to remove Remo by force if necessary. As Remo slunk away back to his own little mud hut, he could hear Chiun explaining behind him: "Sometimes the child forgets himself and must be reminded of his place. But he is young and will yet learn."
Remo had wandered up the hill and Princess Saffah had followed him. She had come to console him.
"Yeah, the legend," Remo repeated. "Look, you're a smart girl. Do you really believe the Loni are going to return to power because Chiun is here?"
"Not just the Little Father," she said. "You are here too and you are part of the legend." She opened the palm of his hand and pretended to examine it. "Tell me, when did you die?" She laughed as she felt Remo's hand tense momentarily. "You see," she said laughing. "The legend speaks only truth."
"You'd better tell me of this legend," Remo said. He was happy that she still clung to his hand.
"Once," she began, "many years ago there was a Master from across the sea. And because he stood with the Loni, the Loni were a great and just people. They lived in peace; they inflicted injustice upon no man. In the ancient days, by your calendar, the great libraries of the world were said to be at Alexandria in the land of Egypt. But the greatest of all was at Timbuktu and it was the library of the Loni. This is true, what I am telling you, Remo, you could look it up. And it was the Loni Empire that gave to the world the gift of iron. That, too, is true. We had men who could repair damaged eyes; we had physicians who could heal those with twisted brains; all these things, the Loni had and did and we were a great people, blessed of God.