The Leopard Woman

Stewart Edward White

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• Publié par: effe
• Publié le: 01 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 55
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Leopard Woman, by Stewart Edward White et al Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission. Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** Title: The Leopard Woman Author: Stewart Edward White et al Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9401] [This file was first posted on September 29, 2003] Edition: 10 Language: English Character set encoding: iso-8859-1 *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE LEOPARD WOMAN *** E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Richard Prairie, Tonya Allen, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders THE LEOPARD WOMAN BY STEWART EDWARD WHITE Illustrated by W. H. D. Koerner 1916 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I. The March II. The Camp III. The Rhinoceros IV. The Stranger V. The Encounter VI. The Leopard Woman VII. The Water Hole VIII. The Thirst IX. On the Plateau X. The Suliani XI. The Ivory Stockade XII. The Pilocarpin XIII. The Tropic Moon XIV. Over the Ranges XV. The Sharpening of the Spear XVI. The Murder XVII. The Darkness XVIII. The Leopard Woman Changes Her Spots XIX. The Trial XX. Kingozi's Ultimatum XXI. The Messengers XXII. The Second Messengers XXIII. The Council of War XXIV. M'tela's Country XXV. M'tela XXVI. Waiting XXVII. The Magic Bone XXVIII. Simba's Adventure XXIX. Winkleman's Safari Arrives XXX. Winkleman Appears XXXI. Light Again XXXII. The Colours XXXIII. Curtain ILLUSTRATIONS "'Go, I say!' cried the Leopard Woman. 'And hold up your head. If this is suspected of you, you will surely die'" ... Frontispiece "'If you will ride in a hammock, you ought to teach your men to shoot,' was Kingozi's greeting" "After the flat crack of the rifle a hollow plunk indicated that the bullet had told" "Their eyes were large with curiosity as to this man and woman of a new species ... Kingozi touched his lips to the tembo" "'Cazi Moto, take this stick and make on the ground marks exactly like those on the barua. Make them deep, so that I may feel them with my hands'" "The search party found Winkleman, very dirty, quite hungry, profoundly chagrined" "At the top of the hill the guide stopped and pointed. Kingozi gathered that through the distant cleft he indicated the strangers must come" "So intent was the Leopard Woman on the examination and on Kingozi that she seemed utterly unconscious of the men standing over opposite ... A more startlingly exotic figure for the wilds of Central Africa could not be imagined" THE LEOPARD WOMAN CHAPTER I THE MARCH It was the close of the day. Over the baked veldt of Equatorial Africa a safari marched. The men, in single file, were reduced to the unimportance of moving black dots by the tremendous sweep of the dry country stretching away to a horizon infinitely remote, beyond which lay single mountains, like ships becalmed hull-down at sea. The immensities filled the world-- the simple immensities of sky and land. Only by an effort, a wrench of the mind, would a bystander on the advantage, say, of one of the little rocky, outcropping hills have been able to narrow his vision to details. And yet details were interesting. The vast shallow cup to the horizon became a plain sparsely grown with flat-topped thorn trees. It was not a forest, yet neither was it open country. The eye penetrated the thin screen of tree trunks to the distance of half a mile or more, but was brought to a stop at last. Underfoot was hard-baked earth, covered by irregular patches of shale that tinkled when stepped on. Well-defined paths, innumerable, trodden deep and hard, cut into the iron soil. They nearly all ran in a northwesterly direction. The few traversing paths took a long slant. These paths, so exactly like those crossing a village green, had in all probability never been trodden by human foot. They had been made by the game animals, the swarming multitudinous game of Central Africa. The safari was using one of the game trails. It was a compact little safari, comprising not over thirty men all told. The single white man walked fifty yards or so ahead of the main body. He was evidently tired, for his shoulders drooped, and his shuffling, slow-swinging gait would anywhere have been recognized by children of the wilderness as that which gets the greatest result from the least effort. Dressed in the brown cork helmet, the brown flannel shirt with spine-pad, the khaki trousers, and the light boots of the African traveller little was to be made of either his face or figure. The former was fully bearded, the latter powerful across the shoulders. His belt was heavy with little leather pockets; a pair of prismatic field-glasses, suspended from a strap around his neck, swung across his chest; in the crook of his left arm he carried a light rifle. Immediately at his heels followed a native. This man's face was in conformation that of the typical negro; but there the resemblance ceased. Behind the features glowed a proud, fierce spirit that transformed them. His head was high but his eyes roved from right to left restlessly, never still save when they paused for a flickering instant to examine some gazelle, some distant herd of zebra or wildebeeste standing in the vista of the flat-topped trees. His nostrils slowly expanded and contracted with his breathing, as do those of a spirited horse. In contrast to the gait of the white man he stepped vigorously and proudly as though the long day had not touched his strength. He wore a battered old felt hat, a tattered flannel shirt, a ragged pair of shorts, and the blue puttees issued by the British to their native troops. The straps of two canteens crossed on his breast; a full cartridge belt encircled his waist; he carried lightly and easily one of those twelve-pound double cordite rifles that constitute the only African life insurance. Fifty yards in the rear marched the carriers.