The Blond Spiders. Charles Beadle

      Chapter I

      I

       Table of Contents

      “Nine little pussyfooters sitting on a knoll!

       Singing songs of hate!

       One drank to —— with Vol!

       Then there were eight!”

      IN THE hot, twittering East African heat even the raucous birds and a shrilling cricket stopped politely to listen to the strange song of the white man. The vocalist, lying beneath a giant Mbuli tree, sighed contentedly and began anew:

      “Eight little pussyfooters staggering down the street!

       Chanting psalms to Heaven!

       One swigged synthetic gin!

       Then there were seven!”

      “Aw, quit it, Tony! You give a man the willies!” bawled a voice from within a green tent.

      “Huh!” sneered another man, squatting under the flap cleaning a rifle. “Mr. Westlake oughta bin the big noise in the Metropolitan an’ he’d ha’ pulled down more ^{(illegible text)} men than ever he will hunting elephants I’ll tell the world!”

      “You’re a nice guy, Alick,” retorted Tony, leaning on his elbow, “but you lack culture. You should have taken a course with a correspondence school before you left and then you might have appreciated me. Anyway I’m going pot-hunting and try my hand at soothing the savage breast.”

      He rose to his feet, shotgun in hand, a lithe figure in khaki shirt and shorts. Although he was slender of build the depth of his chest and the set of his shoulders spoke of power.

      “Watch your step then! That Aussie, Plessons, might take you for a hyena with the colic!” sang out Alick with a laugh that contained a distinct trace of malice.

      “I should worry!” returned Tony cheerfully; and with his Tirai hat on the back of his blond head he strolled off with a slight limp into the bush, caroling defiantly:

      “Seven little pussyfooters dancing round a cask!

       Proud of playing tricks!

       One flashed a pocket flask!

       Then there were six!”

      “We should worry!” snarled the rifle cleaner. “That bird makes me want to ^{(illegible text)}ails!”

      “Look here, Phil Sawyer,” snapped Alick out of a thin-lipped mouth fringed with a Charlie Chaplin mustache after the British subaltern style. “Cut out that stuff. I’ve told you before. Remember you’re a servant with this outfit—supposed to be anyway.”

      “Whatcher want to get sore about?” growled the other sullenly. “That darned Auzzie guide ain’t here. Hazing a feller ain’t slugging him. ’Sides, tomorrow’s the twenty-seventh, ain’t it? He can’t slip one over by then. There’s a mint o’ ways to do the job, and then we kin beat it for the bright lights. This ain’t no sort of life for a feller.”

      “Quit it, I said,” ordered Alick.

      “Aw, what’s eatin’ you, Alick? Can’t I razz the bird as well as you?”

      “No. Keep your trap shut, Dutchy. Get me?”

      As Phil, alias “Dutchy,” dropped his [brownish?]-yellow eyes to his job he seemed ^{(illegible text)}nce, and his grin was changed to a scowl as he bit back some retort.

      Alick emerged fully from the tent and stood staring around the camp speculatively. To the left, within a zareba of branches erected by the porters, was a cluster of natives squatting around the cook fire, all in the dappled shade of the afternoon sun through the light timber.

      Alick Bodiker was a tallish man built on the clothes-rack model. The blue eyes beneath the tow-colored hair were too wide apart and almost as expressionless as pieces of glass. As he turned toward Phil he regarded the other’s bullet head with a sly smile. Then he went over and sat beside him.

      “ ’Sright, Phil,” said he in a conciliating tone, “but you’re too quick on the direct-action stuff. If you get him too sore maybe he’ll get a kind of a grouch and spill his troubles to Plessons; ’nough maybe to give the Aussie a hunch—afterwards. All he knows now is that he’s guiding us on an elephant hunt. Get me?”

      “Sure I get you,” said Phil Sawyer, who was constructed on the motor-truck principle and who looked, and was, hard boiled. “But don’t Plessons ante up too?”

      “He sure don’t.” Bodiker glanced across at the natives, smiling slyly. “He makes the hand high, boy! Good enough anyway for the pot with nobody who dare call! Listen here——” and he continued talking in a low tone for some time. “And that’s that!” he concluded. “Hello, here he is! But what in ——’s he got?”

      Entering the zareba was a stocky man with a grizzled beard who resembled an old and sagacious Airedale. This was their guide, Plessons. He was trailing a rifle in one hand and on the other arm supported a curious-looking object which at first was difficult to recognize as a white man; but white he was or had been, by the dirty gray beard. Aiding him on the far side was a tall negro emaciated almost to a skeleton.

      “——! Here’s Santy Claus comin’ ” muttered Sawyer as the group approached.

      The old man was covered with clothes in tatters and a felt hat that flopped over his face. The native was nude save for a filthy loin cloth and a knife stuck in the girdle.

      “What have you got there, Plessons?” demanded Bodiker.

      “Dunno yet, Mr. Bodiker,” returned the Australian. “He’s abaht all in. This black fella spotted me and come a-runnin’. But he can’t tell me nothin’ neither.”

      “Can’t tell you! Thought you spoke the lingo?”

      “So I does, but the black boy can’t speak. He’s had his tongue slit.”

      “Tongue slit!” echoed Bodiker. “Who did it?”

      “He’s a-goin’ ter write the story as soon as ever he gets to the typewriter,” returned Plessons somberly.