It has food and water, . He told Mbenjane.

Then he went back to Duff. Delirious with pain and brandy Duff did not

sleep at all that night and Sean stayed by his cot until the morning.

About fifty yards from the laager under one of the wild fig trees the

servants built Duff a hut. The framework was of poles and over it they

stretched a tarpaulin. They made a bed for him and brought his mattress

and blankets from the wagon. Sean joined four trek-chains together,

forging new links and hammering them closed. He passed one end of the

chain round the base of the fig tree and riveted it back up on itself.

Duff sat in the shade of a wagon and watched them work. His hurt hand

was in a sling and his face was swollen, the wound crusty-looking and

edged in angry red. When he was finished with the chain, Sean walked

across to him. I'm sorry, Duff, we have to do it. They abolished the

slave trade some time ago, just in case you didn't know. Duff tried to

grin with his distorted face. He stood up and followed Sean to the hut.

Sean looped the loose end of the chain round Duff's waist. He locked it

with a bolt through two of the links then flattened the end of the bolt

with a dozen strokes of the hammer. That should hold you. An excellent

fit, Duff commended him. Now let us inspect my new quarters. Sean

followed him into the hut. Duff lay down on the bed. He looked very

tired and sick. How long will it take before we know? he asked

quietly.

Sean shook his head. I'm not sure. I think you should stay here at

least a month, after that we'll allow you back into society. A month,

it's going to be fun. Lying here expecting any minute to start barking

like a dog and lifting my leg against the nearest tree Sean didn't

laugh. I did a thorough job with the knife.

It's a thousand to one you'll be all right. This is just a precaution.

The odds are attractive, I'll put a fiver on it. Duff crossed his

ankles and stared up at the roof. Sean sat down on the edge of the bed.

It was a long time before Duff ended the silence.

What will it be like, Sean, have you ever seen someone with rabies? No.

But you've heard about it, haven't you? Tell me what you've heard about

it, Duff persisted. For Chrissake, Duff, you're not going to get it.

Tell me, Sean, tell me what you know about it. Duff sat up and caught

hold of Sean's arm.

Sean looked steadily at him for a moment before he answered. You saw

that jackal, didn't you?

Duff sank back onto his pillows. Oh, my God! he whispered.

Together they started the long wait. They used another tarpaulin to

make an open shelter next to the hut and under it they spent the days

that followed.

In the beginning it was very bad. Sean tried to pull Duff out of the

black despair into which he had slumped, but Duff sat for hours at a

time gazing out into the bush, fingering the scabs on his face and only

occasionally smiling at the banquet of choice stories that Sean spread

for him. But at last Seans efforts were rewarded, Duff began to talk.

He spoke of things he had never mentioned before and listening to him

Sean learned more about him than he had in the previous five years.

Sometimes Duff paced up and down in front of Sean's chair with the chain

hanging down behind him like a tail; at other times he sat quietly, his

voice filled with longing for the mother he had never known. , there

was a portrait of her in the upper gallery, I used to spend whole

afternoons in front of it. it was the kindest face I had ever seen Then

it hardened again as he remembered his father, that old bastard.

He talked of his daughter. - she had a fat chuckle that would break

your heart. The snow on her grave made it look like a big sugar-iced

cake, she would have liked that -At other times his voice was puzzled as

he examined some past action of. his, angry as he remembered a mistake

or a missed opportunity. Then he would break off and grin

self-consciously. I say, I am talking a lot of drivel. The scabs on

his face began to dry up and come away, and more often now his old

gaiety bubbled to the surface.

on one of the poles that supported the tarpaulin roof he started a

calendar, cutting a notch for each day. it became a daily ceremony. He

cut each notch with the concentration of a sculptor carving marble and

when he had finished he would stand back and count them aloud as if by

doing so he could force them to add up to thirty, the number that would

allow him to shed his chain.

There were eighteen notches on the pole when the dog went mad. It was

in the afternoon. They were playing Klabejas. Sean had just dealt the

cards when the dog started screaming from among the wagons. Sean

knocked over his chair as he jumped up. He snatched his rifle from

where it leaned against the wall and ran down to the laager.

He disappeared behind the wagon to which the dog was tied and almost

immediately Duff heard the shot. In the abrupt and complete stillness

that followed, Duff slowly lowered his face into his hands.

it was nearly an hour before Sean came back. He picked up his chair,

set it to the table and sat down. It's you to call, are you going to

take on? he asked as he picked up his cards. They played with grim

intensity, fixing their attention on the cards, but both of them knew

that there was a third person at the table now. Promise you'll never do

that to me, Duff blurted out at last.

Sean looked up at him. That I'll never do what to you? What you did to

that dog. The dog! The bloody dog. He should never have taken a

chance with it, he should have destroyed it that first night, Just

because the dog got it doesn't mean that you Swear to me, Duff

interrupted fiercely, swear you won't bring the rifle to me. Duff, you

don't know what you're asking. Once you've got it, Sean stopped;

anything he said would make it worse.

Promise me, Duff repeated. All right, I swear it then. It was worse

now than it had been in the beginning.

Duff abandoned his calendar and with it the hope that had been slowly

growing stronger. If the days were bad then the nights were hell, for

Duff had a dream. It came to him every night, sometimes two or three

times. He tried to keep awake after Sean had left, reading by the light

of a lantern; or he lay and listened to the night noises, the splash and

snort of buffalo drinking down at the waterhole, the liquid half-warble

of night birds or the deep drumming of a lion. But in the end he would

have to sleep and then he dreamed.

He was on horseback riding across a flat brown plain: no hills, no

trees, nothing but lawnlike grass stretching away on all sides to the

horizon. His horse threw no shadow, he always looked for a shadow and