A Pride of Lions by Isobel Chace Page A

possible to see further in the evening light. The glare is less hurtful to the eyes, and a warm, golden glow takes possession of the land. From my perch in the tree, I thought I could see about twenty-five miles, perhaps more, in any given direction and, wherever I could see, I could see the trees felled and stripped of their bark by the elephants. It could only be a matter of time before they ate themselves out of their own home. I said as much to Hugo.
    “You’re probably right,” he said. “It began with the railway, so they say. The elephants helped themselves at night to the water that was kept beside the lines for the steam engines. This meant that they didn’t have to migrate to other feeding grounds to find water. The worst of it is that we’ve made matters worse by creating all these artificial water-holes in Tsavo. The land never gets a rest.”
    “So what’s the answer?” I asked him.
    He shrugged. “I don’t know. We may have to close down the water-holes at certain times of the year to force the elephants out of the park. It might help, but it certainly wouldn’t if they all get killed the moment they go outside. That’s why your father’s attitude, and other farmers like him, is so hopeful to their future.”
    I smiled and stretched my aching limbs. ‘You’d like my father,” I said.
    “Would I?” He sounded amused.
    “I think so. On the surface he has more in common with Mr. Doffnang, but underneath he has more in common with you.”
    Hugo grunted. “I’m intrigued,” he said.
    I wondered if it would be greedy to help myself to another cold drink and decided that it would. “On the surface,” I said with love, “he has a deep distrust of anything attractive, but he has flashes of brilliance which he thinks are obvious to anyone. Only you can’t be sure which things he will mistrust and which he will welcome. But underneath—” I hesitated, considering the problem. “Underneath he is a part of all Africa. He says that anything natural can’t be wrong, that all we need is space to live and the ground under our feet. He should have had sons, like the Boer that he is, but he only had me.”
    “And you think I’m like that?” Hugo put in.
    I blushed. I had forgotten that I had made the comparison. “A bit,” I said. ‘You’re part of Africa too.”
    He gave me a surprised, flattered look. “I certainly ought to have lusty sons around me at this moment, instead of only you!” he teased me.
    I looked away, hotly embarrassed. “You’ll have to get married first.”
    His laughter rang out across the empty land. “So I will! But raw Africa is harder on a woman than it is on a man—”
    “The dominant male?” I murmured.
    “Not exactly. But it isn’t like living in Nairobi or Mombasa, is it?”
    I chuckled, “Praise be for that!”
    He gave me a quick look of interest but said nothing. The time could not have gone slower. I tried swinging my legs and was rewarded by the sharp prick of pins and needles in my feet. At last the light was beginning to fade and an orange glow had seized the sky, broken only by the silhouettes of the surrounding vegetation.
    The vultures still circled over the dead elephant and other scavengers, led by a pack of hyenas, began to move in. Otherwise we had no visitors beyond a single rhinoceros who was feeding on the tasty thorn trees below. The grinding of his teeth on the thorns was clearly audible, but he was far too myopic to spot us. Only when he moved down-wind did he scent that there was something strange about our tree. He came charging up to within a few feet of us and then stopped, pawing the ground in front of him. He was uncertain now and relying on his senses of smell and hearing to help him overcome the handicap of his nearly blind eyes. He stormed away, sniffed | he air, his ears twitching, then charged back again towards the tree.
    “Damn,” said Hugo. “If anyone is watching, he’ll give our position away.”
    Although he had