Wilbur Smith - Assegai

‘I’m going to take you for a swim in our magical pool,’ she cried. ‘Throw off those dusty old clothes, sir, and come with me.’ She stopped dancing and watched with her full attention as he hopped on one foot to pull off his boots.

‘All of your things bounce and joggle when you do that,’ she observed.

‘So do yours.’

‘Mine aren’t as pretty and useful as yours.’

‘Oh, yes, they jolly well are.’ He flung aside his breeches and started after her. ‘Let me show you just how useful yours really are.’ She squealed with mock-alarm, ran to the end of the ledge and paused there for just long enough to make certain he was still pursuing her. Then she clasped her hands above her head and dived into the pool. She struck the water like an arrow, her limbs perfectly aligned with her body so that there was almost no splash as she slipped beneath the surface. She went deep, her image wavering beneath the ripples, then shot up again so swiftly that her white body burst out to the level of her belly button before she fell back with her hair slicked over her shoulders, like the pelt of an otter.

‘It’s cold! My bet is that you’re too much of a sissy to chance it,’ she shouted.

‘You lose your bet, and here I come for my payment.’

‘You must catch me first.’ She laughed and set off for the far side of the pool, kicking up a froth behind her.

He dived in and ploughed after her with long, powerful, overhead strokes. He caught her before she was halfway across, and seized her from behind. ‘Pay up!’ he demanded, and turned her to face him.

She placed both arms around his neck and her lips on his. Kissing, they sank deep below the surface only to come up again, spluttering, choking and laughing. She had her long legs locked around his waist and her arms around his neck. She lifted herself out of the water and used her weight to force his head under, then twisted out of his grip and darted away. She only looked back when she reached the far side of the pool. The waterfall thundered down in two separate streams, leaving an area of quiet water between them. In the centre of this haven a single rock thrust its top above the surface, black and smooth, polished by the waters. She pulled herself up on to it and sat with her legs dangling below the surface. With both hands she thrust her wet hair back from her eyes as she looked around for Leon. At first she was laughing, but then, as she saw no sign of him, she became anxious. ‘Badger! Leon! Where are you?’ she cried.

He had followed her across the pool, but as she approached the black rock he had taken a deep breath and duck-dived, swinging his legs high in the air so that their weight forced his body under. Once he was below the surface he swam on downwards. He had imagined that the pool was probably bottomless, for he had seen no overflow at the surface. The huge volume of water pouring over the falls must have another means of escape. But as he swam down he found he had been mistaken. The bottom appeared below him and, even at this depth, the water was so clear that he could see it was covered with a jumble of rocks that must have fallen from the cliffs.

By now his eardrums were aching with the pressure and he stopped to clear them, holding his nose and blowing air through the Eustachian tubes. His ears squealed and popped, the pain subsided and he swam on down. He reached the bottom and found that among the rocks was scattered a bizarre collection of Masai artefacts: ancient assegais and axes, mounds of pottery shards, necklaces and bracelets made from trade beads, small carvings of hardwood and ivory, primitive jewellery and other artefacts so old and rotten that they were unidentifiable, all offerings made by the Masai over the ages to their tribal gods.

By now he had expended most of his oxygen so he took one last look around, and the mystery of the overflow was solved. The wall below the waterfall was pierced by a number of almost horizontal adits that had probably been blown out in antiquity by boiling lava and gas from the volcano under the mountain. It was these dark and sinister passages that drained away the overflow from the pool and kept it at a constant level. By now his lungs were heaving for air and he swam for the surface. As the light strengthened he saw above him a pair of long, shapely feminine legs dabbling below the surface. He swam up under them, seized the ankles and jerked their owner into the pool on top of him. They came to the surface again, clinging together and gasping for air.

Eva recovered her voice before he did. ‘You heartless swine! I thought you were drowned or swallowed by a crocodile. How can you play such a cruel trick on me?’

They swam back to where they had left their clothes.

‘We don’t want you to catch your death of cold,’ Leon told her, and made her stand naked on the ledge while he dried her with his shirt.

She held her hands above her head and revolved slowly to allow him to reach the difficult places. ‘What big eyes you have, sir. You’re doing a great deal more looking than drying. So is your one-eyed friend down there. I should make both of you wear a blindfold,’ she said, as she came around to face him.

‘And who is the heartless one now?’ he asked.

‘Not me!’ she cried. ‘Let me prove to both of you what a kind heart I have.’ She reached out and grasped his friend firmly but tenderly. In the first divine madness of their passion they were insatiable.

It was almost dark when, hand in hand, they went down the pathway. As soon as they topped the fold of ground that concealed the pool they saw the campfire burning not far below. When they reached it they found that a log had been placed in front of the flames as a bench for them. When they had settled themselves on it, Ishmael appeared, bearing two mugs of strong black coffee, with evaporated milk.

Eva sniffed the air. ‘What is that delicious aroma, Ishmael?’

He showed no surprise that, for the first time, she was speaking English rather than German or French. ‘It is green-pigeon casserole, Memsahib.’

‘Ishmael’s celestial version thereof,’ Leon added. ‘It should only be eaten with bared head on bended knee.’

‘I’m so starving that I’m prepared to go down on both knees. It must be the swimming, or something else, that is so good for the appetite,’ she said.

He laughed. ‘ Viva! That little something else.’

Immediately they had eaten, they were overwhelmed by a wonderful weariness. Manyoro and Loikot had built a small thatched shelter for them, well away from their own huts, and Ishmael had cut a mattress of fresh grass and covered it with blankets. Over it he had hung Leon’s mosquito net. They shed their clothes and Leon blew out the candle stub before they crept under the net.

‘It’s so safe and intimate and cosy in here,’ she whispered, and he lay behind her and enfolded her in his embrace. She pushed her round warm buttocks into his belly so that their bodies fitted together like a pair of spoons. The reflection of the campfire played shadow games on the netting over their heads, and the piping duet of two scops owlets in the branches of the tree above them was both plaintive and lulling.

‘I have never been so pleasantly exhausted in my entire life,’ she murmured.

‘Too exhausted?’

‘That’s not what I meant, you silly man.’

She woke in the dawn to find Leon sitting cross-legged over her. ‘You’ve been watching me!’ she accused him.

‘Guilty as charged,’ he admitted. ‘I thought you were never going to wake up. Come on!’

‘It’s midnight, Badger!’ she protested.

‘Do you see that big shiny thing peeking at you through the chinks in the thatching? It’s called the sun.’

‘Where do you want to go at this ridiculous hour?’