If you go on like this I might have to knock the thunder out of you

myself. Glory, but you are a dangerous one!

Katrina, you had better go back to our wagons and help Henrietta see to

your brother. Leave the basin on the chest there. She looked at Sean

once more before she left. There were secret shadows in the green, she

didn't have to smile with her mouth.

Sean woke to the realization that something was wrong.

He started to sit up but the pain checked him: the stiffness of bruised

muscle and the catch of half-dried scab.

He groaned and the movement hurt his lips. Slowly he swung his legs off

the cot and roused himself to take stock of the damage. Dark through

the hair of his chest showed a heel imprint of Jan Paulus's boot. Sean

prodded round it gently, feeling for the give of a broken rib; then,

satisfied with that area, he went on to inspect the raw graze that

wrapped round onto his back, holding his left arm high and peering

closely at the broken skin. He picked a bit of blanket fluff from the

scab. He stood up, only to freeze as a torn muscle in his shoulder

knifed him. He started to swear then softly, monotonously, and he kept

it up all through the painful business of climbing down out of the

wagon.

His entire following watched his descent, even the dogs looked worried.

Sean reached the ground and started to shout.

What the hell!

He stopped hurriedly as he felt his lips crack open again and start to

bleed.

rWhat the hell', he said again, keeping his lips still ,are you doing

standing round like a bunch of women at a beer drink, is there no work

here? Hlubi, I thought I sent you out to look for elephant Hlubi went.

Kandhla, where's breakfast? Mbejane, get me a basin of water and my

shaving-mirror. Sean sat in his chair and morosely inspected his face

in the mirror.

If a herd of buffalo had stampeded across it they would have done less

damage."Nkosi, it is nothing compared to his face, Mbejane assured him.

Is he bad? Sean looked up.I have spoken to one of his servants. He has

not left his bed yet and he lies there, growling like a wounded lion in

a thicket; but his eyes are as tightly closed as those of a new

cub."Tell me more, Mbejane. Say truly, was it a good fight?

Mbejane squatted down next to Sean's chair. He was silent a moment as

he gathered his words.When the sky sends its cloud impis against the

peaks of the Drakensberg, with thunder and the spears of lightning, it

is a thing to thrill a man. When two bull elephants fight unto death

there is no braver show in all the veld.

Is this not so?

Sean nodded, his eyes twinkling.Nkosi, hear me when I tell you these

things were as the play of little children beside this fight Sean

listened to the praises. Mbejane was well versed lkin the oldest art of

Zululand and when he had finished he looked at Sean's face. It was

happy. Mbejane smiled and took a fold of paper out of his loin cloth. A

servant from the other camp brought this while you slept Sean read the

note. It was written in a big round school- girl hand and worded in

High Dutch. He liked that writing.

It was an invitation to dinner. Kandhla, get out my suit and my number

one boots. He picked up the mirror again. There wasn't very much he

could do about his face, trim the beard, perhaps, but that was all. He

laid the mirror down and looked up stream to where the Leroux wagons

were half hidden among the trees.

Mbejane carried a lantern in front of Sean. They walked slowly to

enable Sean to limp with dignity. When they reached the other laager,

Jan Paulus climbed stiffly out of his chair and nodded an equally still

greeting. Mbejane had lied, except for a missing tooth there was little

to choose between their faces. Oupa slapped Sean's back and pressed a

tumbler of brandy into his hand. He was a tall roan but twenty thousand

suns had burnt away Ins flesh and left only stringy muscle, had faded

his eyes to a pale green and toughened his skin to the texture of a

turkey's neck. His beard was yellowish-white with still a touch of

ginger round the mouth. He asked Sean three questions without giving

him time to answer the first, then he led him to a chair.

Oupa talked, Sean listened and Jan Paulus sulked. Oupa talked of cattle

and hunting and the land to the north.

After a few minutes Sean realized that he was not expected to take part

in the conversation: his few tentative efforts were crushed under Oupa's

verbal avalanche.

So Sean listened half to him and half to the whisper of women's voices

from the cooking fires behind the laager.

Once he heard her laugh. He knew it was her for it was the rich sound

of the thing that he had seen in her eyes.

At last the women's business with food and pots was finished and Ouma

led the girls to where the men sat. Sean stood up and saw that Katrina

was tall, with shoulders like a boy. As she walked towards him the

movement pressed her skirt against her legs, they were long but her feet

were small. Her hair was red-black and tied behind her head in an

enormous bun. Ah, my battling bear, Ouma took Sean's arm, let me

present my daughter-in-law, Henrietta, here is the man that nearly

killed your husband. Jan Paulus snorted from his chair and Ouma

laughed, her bosom wobbling merrily.

Henrietta was a small dark-eyed girl. She doesn't like me, Sean guessed