Drum Read Free

eyes with the same shameless modesty the other girls had employed. He felt her eyes tracing the soiled arabesques of his loincloth and he rejoiced in the involuntary response which riveted her attention even more avidly.
    Balancing the burden on his back, he squatted on his heels until his eyes were level with hers.
    "After tonight?" His question was more of a command. She giggled and turned her eyes away but only momentarily. "After tonight there will be blood," she taunted him. "But the blood will stop."
    "And after the blood there will be a soreness." "But the soreness will not endure. And then . . . ?" Now she avoided his eyes. "And when the soreness has stopped, it will be the night of the dance," she sighed. "But," she tossed her head, "it is the night that I have promised to another."
    He reUnquished his burden and grabbed her hand. The force of his grip made her drop the pestle.

    "You are hurting." Iba made much of trying to pull her hand free from his grasp.
    "I shall hurt more unless you take back your words. You are promised to nobody but me. When you quit the dancing, you will wait for me beyond the kraal, by the garden of your father."
    "Why should I wait for you?" She was still struggling.
    "Because I choose you as my first and I shall not disappoint you. And you? You know that you desire me and that there will be no other."
    She snatched her hand away and in so doing she deliberately brushed it across the now tautly stretched loincloth.
    "There is a possibility." Her eyes met his and she smiled.
    Tamboura straightened up with the energy of hidden springs in his knees. Unable to contain himself, he bounced on his toes. The heavy burden was no longer heavy and he ran from her to the largest hut in the kraal. It faced the clean-swept circular dance compound of hard-beaten earth with the black fire circle in the center. In front of the hut were the carved tree trunks of his ancestors' spirits. He slipped the buck to the ground.
    "Mandouma, my brother!" he called out. "Come, the buck that I have killed for my feast tonight is here at your door." He waited until his brother appeared, a man possibly in his forties, for the black wool was graying at his temples, although his powerful body foretold that which Tamboura's promised.
    Mandouma stood in the doorway, looking down at the antelope. He noted the single wound in the neck.
    "A good kill," he admitted grudgingly. "With one throw of the spear. Go now to the house of Kanili to prepare yourself for the blood sacrifice that will make you a man." He waited in the doorway until he saw Tamboura run across the dancing ground and enter the hut of Kanili. With his bare foot he kicked the buck's head, studying the wound, then re-entered the hut.
    A woman's voice, that of his wife, Zarassa, whined from the semidarkness.
    "The cub has returned."
    "That he has." Bansu languidly raised himself up on one elbow from the pile of skins on which he was lying. "Of course the little lion has survived all the ordeals of preparation and of course he has slain his meat offering for the feast. Now what shall we do?"

    The dim light that entered the doorway glinted on the knife that Zarassa tossed to Bansu.
    "No, woman, not that!" Mandouma reached down and picked up the knife. "His blood is my blood and it cannot be spilled by me, and not by you or my son. His spirit would haunt us and torture us."
    "Then let him live!" Zarassa stamped her foot. "Yes, let the brat live and let him grow up to plot against you and wish for your death that he may be king. Let him take the place your own son should rightfully have; you know that Bansu can be nothing as long as Tamboura lives. Not until he dies can Bansu sit at your feet in the council and echo your words. I say that Tamboura must die."
    Zarassa could not see the quick raising of Mandouma's hand in the half-light, but the sharp crack of it against her teeth caused her to reel and fall to her knees.
    "Shut your mouth, woman! It is as big as a