British East Africa, 1896 AD
The mountain rose from the plain as a rugged dome of black rock with a crater for a summit. Jack Erwin figured his old man, ever the amateur geologist, would have identified this natural edifice as a volcano long gone extinct. Comparing it and its surroundings to the drawing on the yellowed map he had bought in Mombasa, he smiled. This had to be it, Mlima Unaometa, known in English as the Sparkling Mountain.
Maulidi, the grizzled Swahili huntsman whom Jack had hired as his guide, hugged his musket with shivering arms the way a scared child might cling onto their doll. His eyes darted side to side as he faced the stone ruins that lay at the mountain’s southeastern foot.
“There could be djinn here,” Maulidi said, “Allah please watch over us.”
“I should’ve figured you’d be scared of ghosts, old man,” Jack muttered.
Even he had to admit, if there was any place out here that would be haunted, it would be these ruins. Lichen-stained walls formed rings in scattered clusters, with each ring enclosing a circle of crumbling columns. Here and there stood the weathered stone likeness of a human figure, or an animal of the savanna, or a fanciful hybrid with a human body and an animal head not unlike some ancient Egyptian gods. Whatever local people had erected this deserted city must have numbered in the hundreds if not thousands.
It recalled some of the ghost towns that peppered Jack’s native Kansas, right down to the yellow grass of the surrounding plains and the howl of the evening wind that blew between the abandoned structures. With the chill crawling up his spine, he wondered whether he should have been so dismissive of his guide’s discomfort.
“Just to be sure, I’ll try drawing them out,” Jack said.
He unslung his rifle and fired into the sky with a cracking report. Birds squawked as they fluttered from the nearby acacia and bushwillow trees, and a herd of impala galloped away from the ruins’ far side. Other than that, nothing suspicious. Even the wind fell silent.
Jack gave Maulidi a confident smirk. “Seems even your djinn fear gunfire.”
The guide gulped. “I can only hope you are right, Bwana Erwin.”
Guiding the donkey that carried their supplies, they advanced up a grassy avenue that divided the ruined city in half until they reached the foot of the mountain. A pair of obelisks inscribed with worn pictographs stood on opposite sides of a spherical boulder which blocked the entrance to a tunnel in the mountainside. When Jack slipped his hand into a crevice between the big outcropping and the tunnel wall and pushed on the former, the blockage would not budge.
“Ah, Christ, looks like we’ll need to get the pickaxes out,” he grumbled.
The donkey snorted with its long ears erect and twitching. Maulidi pointed his gun back at the far side of the avenue with narrowed eyes, whispering an anxious prayer in Swahili. Jack looked in the direction his guide and their animal were facing, while also holding his rifle out but saw nothing. All he could hear was the familiar buzzing of savanna insects and the return of the wind’s howl.
With a shrug each, both men slid their pickaxes off the donkey’s back and went to work wedging the tools’ long flat heads along the boulder’s sides. They groaned through their teeth and stretched their arm muscles taut as they pulled. It took several pulls before they finally got the big rock rolling out of the way and exposed the tunnel’s open maw.
After asking his guide to stand outside and guard the donkey, Jack lit a lantern and waded into the blackness of the mountain’s interior. He scanned the walls of igneous rock for the dimmest glimmer of diamonds, or maybe gold, or whatever precious rocks they had named the mountain for. Cold sweat streamed down his brow, for the pure silence within the tunnel could be even more eerie than the wind that wailed outside.
The darkness did not go on forever. The spark of daylight in the distance expanded until it flooded Jack’s vision with a brightness that almost blinded him after the hour or so he had spent following the tunnel’s crooked path. Once his eyes readjusted, he found himself on a ledge overlooking a vast pit that yawned into the earth, with sunlight pouring down the volcanic vent overhead. Terraces conjoined with ramps formed a spiraling path around the pit, leading to a pool of brown water at the bottom.
The sides of the terraces all sparkled. The legends were true, this would have been a mine far bigger and far older than the one over in Kimberley to the distant south. Cecil Rhodes himself would be red with envy if he were to see this.
Jack struck his pickax at a random twinkle in the rock beneath his feet. It did not take long for him to excavate the one thing he had spent half his family’s fortune coming to Africa for, the one thing that would lift them out of poverty back in Kansas. Plucking it out of the ground, he laughed with victorious glee as he held between his fingers a diamond bigger than a chicken egg.
There followed a scream and a donkey’s panicked braying, both shattering the silence even when muffled by the volcano’s stony walls. Pushing the diamond into his pocket, Jack hurried back through the tunnel, his heart palpitating even faster than his running. When the light of the entrance returned to his eyes, he tore out his rifle and accelerated despite the strain burning his legs.
When Jack came out of the tunnel, his guide had fallen to his knees, holding up empty hands while whimpering like a terrified schoolboy. Before them stood a semicircle of warriors in leather loincloths who all had their spears thrust forward, forming a ring of sharp and barbed iron blades that were less than an inch away from stabbing Jack and Maulidi’s necks. Behind their oval buffalo-hide shields, their glaring eyes glinted with even more menacing brilliance than their weapons’ points.
Jack then knew he should never have fired that shot before he and his guide entered the ruins. They might have scared off the Swahili’s djinn, but in doing so, they had attracted other, even less welcome attention.
The warrior who stood in the center of the formation, unlike the rest, was a woman. A saffron-red loincloth and top hugged the curves of her sable-skinned figure, and ringlets of tightly coiled black hair framed her face like a lion’s mane. Embedded in the gold pendant that hung from the lowest of her necklaces, as well as the gold circlet around her head, were numerous diamonds which twinkled orange in the light of the sunset.
She smiled as she tapped Jack’s chin with the tip of her spear. “You are more handsome than most white men, I must admit,” she said in English flawless enough to surprise Jack. “What are you doing in the lands of the Sibour people?”
Jack dropped his rifle and held up his hands with a nervous grin. “Um…nothing that should concern you, ma’am.”
Her spear’s point dug into the skin of his neck. “Answer me, mzungu!”
“Alright, alright…just a little, um, prospecting for diamonds. Nothing more.”
“He speaks the truth,” Maulidi added. “Please, I beg you, let us go in peace.”
“Then it is as I feared,” the woman said. “You should know that the very ground you stand on belongs to our ancestors. With your trespassing and robbery, you defile their hallowed abode!”
“By digging up a few little sparkling rocks?” Jack retorted. “There’s no need to get so darn upset, ma’am. We don’t mean any harm, honestly. Let us go and we’ll be outta here in a hurry!”
The female warrior scoffed. “As if white men like you could ever be trusted. You mzungu are always barging in to steal from us. Why, it was white men like you who took my brother away!”
“Hold on, what in tarnation are you talking about?”
“I think I know what she means,” Maulidi said. “I heard that the British recently took a chieftain around her prisoner because he refused to pay their taxes.”
“That is true,” the warrior woman said. “He was my brother Oburu, King of the Sibour. I, Anyango, must take his place as regent until I can buy the British off. And their demands are much more than my people can meet right now.”
“Christ Almighty, that’s terrible!” Jack replied. “But please understand, Miss Anyango, that I’d nothing to do with that. I ain’t even British! I’m from the United States of America. We haven’t been British for more than a century now.”
“And yet you still have the same mindset that you can trespass on our land and plunder our wealth. Whether British or American, why should we trust any of you mzungu?”
After scratching the short brown hair under his Stetson hat in thought, Jack’s face lit up. “Because I can help free your brother.”
Anyango cocked her eyebrow while everyone else stood gaping at him.
“By Allah, you can’t be serious, Bwana Erwin,” Maulidi said.
“Think about it, I can infiltrate wherever the Brits are holding him better than any of you,” Jack said. “They’ll sooner lower their guard around any white man who can speak English like them.”
Anyango’s scowl relaxed as she and her warriors withdrew their spears. “That does make sense. You could slip into their camp without arousing suspicion and then free my brother.”
“Of course, just in case things turn sour, I might need some help. Miss Anyango, could you and your warriors attack the garrison upon my signal? That’ll give the Brits a diversion while I’m sneaking your brother out.”
The Sibour queen regent’s grin now stretched between her eyes. “Sounds like a sound strategy to me. If you can rescue my brother like you promise, mzungu, then we will let you go unharmed. Why, we might even let you bring home a handful of diamonds, if that really is all you came here for.”
“Then, as we Americans like to say, it’s a deal!” Jack and Anyango exchanged smiles, their eyes reflecting each other’s sparks.
Oburu, King of the Sibour, had lost track of the days since the British had bound him to the post. If there was one positive thing he could say about the experience, it was that he had eventually grown used to the coarse ropes scratching his skin. He could say the same about the gag of rough cloth around his mouth, which his captors would lower only when the time came to feed him hardtack and lukewarm water. Even the brutal heat of the daytime sun and the chill of the night had become tolerable simply by virtue of Oburu having been exposed to them for so long without shelter from either.
What had not healed was the wound to his regal pride. The white-skinned demons had stripped the king of his crown and jewelry, leaving him naked but for a loincloth. To his people, Oburu represented the will of Nyasi the Creator and the ancestors under him. To his jailors, he was nothing more than a prisoner to pelt with spit and stones whenever they got bored.
The largest of the bone-white tents around the post parted its flaps. Out strutted Colonel William Struthers in his pith helmet and khaki uniform, pinching a porcelain teacup with one hand and a saucer with the other. A young Swahili boy who always kept his head low followed the colonel with a teapot in hand. As much as Oburu had never liked how Swahili slavers would harass his people in the past, seeing the wet glistening of misery in the child’s eyes softened his heart.
Even as Col. Struthers took a sip from his cup, the characteristic sneer of his monocled and white-bearded face stayed on, as if the Creator had sculpted it that way like the expression on a ritual mask. “I must say, King Oburu, considering how long you’ve been there, you’ve been a jolly good sport so far. I’m almost tempted to admire your resilience.”
Oburu lacked the will to even grumble under the cloth around his mouth. It would do no good for him.
“If it’s any consolation, you may not have to stand there suffering much longer,” Struthers went on. He placed both teacup and saucer in the Swahili boy’s hand and pulled out a sheet of paper from his pocket. “I’ve just received a telegram from the governor suggesting that we not bother with this ransom business like we originally planned. Instead of waiting for that feisty sister of yours to pay up, we’ll simply take everything for ourselves. And you, my good man, will be sent on a swift voyage back to your Creator. How do you like the sound of that, old chap?”
Had the colonel told him that on the day they first met, Oburu would have roared with horrified rage. Now, he could only sigh under his gag. It was all his fault. He should have agreed to the British taxes, burdensome and exploitative as they might have seemed. Because he had chosen to defy the brutes instead, they would destroy his people, including his dear sister Anyango. That is, unless they had a fate even worse than death in mind for her, as was often the case with male demons toward women.
The colonel’s sneer widened to show a row of teeth interspersed with gold fillings as he unsheathed his saber and pulled down his prisoner’s gag with its tip. “How about I give you a choice, Your Highness? Would you rather stay here waiting for your sister’s ransom, or would you prefer the swift and immediate solution?”
“It makes no difference to me,” Oburu croaked. “My people will suffer regardless.”
“Hmmm…well, I’m sure my lads will appreciate a little sport putting you out of your misery, my swarthy acquaintance. How about I send them all here with their rifles in a jiffy?”
Another British soldier ran up to Struthers from behind. “Sir, we have a visitor. He’s a young American gentleman who claims to have information of interest.”
“Ah, never would’ve expected a Yank in these remote parts,” the colonel replied. “I best go give him proper accommodation. The chap must be worn silly.”
Watching Struthers and company walk away from him, Oburu sighed again, but this time in relief.
As the sun began its gradual plunge behind the western mountains, their shadow dragged across the savanna beneath their foothills. That was good for Anyango and her warriors, for it gave them even more cover than they already had. Beneath a scrubby gallery of acacia trees, bushes, and waist-high grass that grew along the banks of a shallow stream, they lay in silent wait while holding onto their spears and shields.
As they did so, they kept their eyes on the palisade of thin, lopsided wooden stakes that staggered along the summit of the hill ahead of them, demarcating the British encampment’s southern perimeter. Those stakes would be easy to chop down or even push aside like grass.
Maulidi the old Swahili came sprinting down a dirt trail that ran beside the hill’s base, his wizened brow glossy with sweat as he approached where Anyango lay. “Queen Anyango, a British patrol is coming this way.”
“How many men?” Anyango asked.
“Thirty, more or less. Should we retreat until they pass?”
Anyango shook her head with a smirk. “We can wipe them out with ease. Their modern rifles might be useful to claim.”
“You sure you want to do that, my queen? The gunshots might give us away before we’re ready.”
“Which is why we’ll strike before they can fight back. Why don’t you lure them in, Maulidi?”
After a short hesitation, Maulidi scurried to crouch behind a stand of sickle bush that rested along the trail, hugging onto his musket. The scuffing of boots on dusty earth announced the arrival of thirty British riflemen, twenty of them being sulking native askaris with cylindrical red caps who marched behind ten white men with pith helmets. When the patrol neared the sickle bushes, Maulidi jumped out of hiding and whistled to them.
From her position within the streamside brush, Anyango could not make out what the Swahili was telling the Britons. What she could see was him pointing toward the trees where she and her warriors awaited, the white soldiers looking at each other, and the foremost of them licking his lips as if Maulidi had offered his patrol some juicy cuts of beef. She chuckled to herself. Nothing would do white men in like their insatiable greed, whatever it was for.
The British patrol followed Maulidi as he ran back to the strip of woodland. Anyango grinned with bared teeth. Now was the time to strike.
She whistled to her men behind her, and together they struck. They descended on the soldiers with the rapidity of leopards pouncing onto antelopes. Not one of the patrollers had time to even yelp in terror, let alone shoot with their guns, while cold sharp iron pierced through their uniforms and sliced through their flesh and bones. In an eye’s blink, all thirty of them lay dead on the savanna floor.
Anyango knelt over one of the fallen askaris. As much as she hated the British, she had found much less joy in having to kill their black subordinates alongside them. She could not really blame any of the askaris for what those pale-skinned demons had impelled them to do. Still, it was a necessary sacrifice for the good of her own people.
“May Nyasi watch over you as you return to your ancestors,” she murmured while she pried the rifle out of the askari’s hands.
“Keep in mind that these guns are not like my trusty old musket,” Maulidi said. “They’re breech-loaders, not muzzleloaders. You load them like this.”
He picked up another one of the British rifles, opened its breech, and let the cartridges slide out.
“That does seem more convenient than the old way,” Anyango said. She stripped the belt of cartridges off the askari’s body. “I believe the British will be shocked to see us with these along with our old spears!”
Jack Erwin waited in front of the entrance through the camp’s western palisade. On the wooden board mounted above the entryway were painted white cursive letters that read Camp Struthers, which Jack read out loud.
“It’s named for the colonel’s family,” one of the two guards there explained. “His nephew wants to open a diamond mine in the hills nearby. The boy even bets that he’ll give De Beers a good run for their money. Ha, like that’ll ever happen!”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that, partner,” Jack said. He pointed to the foothills behind him. “I’ve just been to an ancient mine beyond those yonder hills. Not only would it put Ol’ Cecil’s little hole in Kimberley to shame, but you oughta see what I dug up there.”
He pulled out of his pocket the egg-sized diamond he had found in the Sparkling Mountain. Both guards’ widened eyes reflected its luster.
“Bloody Lord!” the second guard exclaimed. “You could make a killing off that stone alone!”
“I would’ve dug up more, but alas, the natives didn’t take a liking to my being there,” Jack replied.
“Good thing we’re here to deal with them, eh, Wimbledon?” the first guard said with a wink to his fellow.
Both Britons shared a devilish laugh. As much as it made his stomach twist with sickness, Jack feigned a chuckle with them. He did not want to give away how he truly felt this early in the plan.
The two guards went silent and straightened themselves upon the arrival of their colonel, a white-bearded and monocled man who sipped tea as he strutted to meet Jack. A native boy holding a teapot with a forlorn expression followed close by him. Jack could not quite put his finger on it, but something about the youth’s facial features—his cheekbones and nose, perhaps—reminded him of his guide Maulidi.
“Why, hello there, young lad,” Colonel Struthers greeted Jack with an upturned head. “You’re the young Yank who has something of importance to share with us, I presume? You sure look like you’ve been places.”
“Indeed, I have,” Jack answered.
“Then why don’t you toddle over with me to my tent where we can discuss it over some tea? Or coffee, since that’s what I hear you Yanks prefer nowadays. I bet a few pounds you’re exhausted after so long in the bush.”
Jack followed the colonel and his servant across the camp, passing conical white tents with soldiers bantering around cooking fires in front of them. They stopped at a tent twice as large as the rest in the middle of camp, with a wooden post standing in front of it. To Jack’s horror, there was bound to the post a native man in a torn, dust-stained loincloth with a gag around his mouth. The poor soul hung his head low with defeated dejection, as if he had given up on struggling against his bonds long ago.
“Sorry if it’s not a pleasant sight,” Struthers said. “That nigger you see there is Oburu, King of the Sibour nation. He wouldn’t pay his dues to our protectorate, so we’re holding him here until his sister the regent pays his ransom. Although, by the look of things so far, we might as well not bother.”
“What do you mean, ‘not bother’?” Jack asked.
Struthers took out a telegram from his pocket. “The governor in Mombasa would prefer we just send the little heathen off to his maker and take everything he and his sister are withholding from us. It makes good sense to me, personally. As I’m fond of saying, the best diplomacy is diplomacy by gun and sword.
“Anyway, this evening I’ll gather my men to give our Sibour guest a proper British sendoff. It’ll be quite banging good sport for the lads if I do say so myself. Why don’t you stay and watch? I understand you Yanks like seeing a nigger receive justice.”
The nausea inside Jack had shoved out any interest he had in tea or coffee with the colonel. Before arriving at the camp, he had invented and rehearsed a story for the colonel about a Sibour uprising to the north that would give him a pretext to come here and then sneak around in search of Oburu. No longer did he even want to bother with that. With the king held in bondage right in front of them, Jack might as well act now and get it all over with.
He unsheathed the Bowie knife from his belt and hacked Oburu’s bonds off.
“What the bloody devil?” Struthers exclaimed. “Why’d you—”
Unslinging his rifle, Jack fired at the colonel. Struthers dodged it with an agility surprising for an old man, but at least Jack had sent the signal with his report.
Jack aimed for another shot. The colonel whipped the gun’s barrel aside with his saber before the American could pull the trigger. Struthers then slashed Jack’s shoulder and cut through his vest and shirt to draw blood. Growling through gritted teeth, Jack parried the British colonel’s next attack with his rifle with sparks flying from the clash of metal. Jack swung the gun at Struthers, smacking his cheek with its wooden stock, and the Briton retaliated with a furious slash across the American’s chest that almost dug to the sternum. Blasted with pain, Jack crumpled to the dusty camp floor on his knees.
Struthers drew his sword back for another stroke when a dark-skinned arm launched itself around his neck. As he grappled with his former captor, Oburu plucked the colonel’s saber out of his grip and held it under his jaw, the edge of the blade slicing across the skin. A gunshot grazed the Sibour king’s arm, and Struthers pushed himself free and reclaimed his weapon while the man he had held prisoner recoiled.
A ring of British soldiers assembled to surround Jack and Oburu with bayoneted guns pointed like spears at them. Holding a hand over the wound the king had cut into him, the colonel brandished his bloodied saber with a gargled roar. “Kill them both!”
Jack punched a gap through the ring of soldiers with one shot of his rifle. He and Oburu raced through it, escaping a volley of British gunfire, only to find more men coming after them. Jack dodged and fired his way through the camp, taking out one Briton or askari after another, until his gun clicked empty. He ducked behind a crate of supplies and reached for one of his spare cartridges when a British bayonet stabbed his arm. Jack flung a fist at the soldier, who batted him back with his gun and thrust at him again. Only by tottering backward was the American able to avoid the bayonet this time.
Another gunshot cracked, and the British soldier collapsed with a crimson hole in his temple.
It was Anyango who had shot him. Her warriors were engaging the British from the south with their spears as well as stolen rifles, filling that area of the camp with the clamor of gunfire, metal clanging against metal, and death cries.
“Where’d you learn to shoot a gun?” Jack asked.
“I can pick up things like that,” Anyango said with a proud nod. “I’m a fast learner.”
Something sputtered, and Anyango dove behind the crate beside Jack. Two British soldiers were pushing a Maxim gun on wheels toward them with diabolical laughter. The blood drained from Jack’s face, turning it cold and pale. Even more than their repeating rifles or other technology, the Maxim gun was the weapon that allowed the British imperial hordes to carve out so much of the African continent for themselves.
“What is that?” Oburu asked as he crouched alongside his sister, now holding a stolen rifle of his own.
“You don’t want to know,” Jack whispered.
Another spate of bullets from the Maxim burst through the crate covering them, forcing the three to scurry southward to rejoin the other Sibour warriors. The British had wheeled more Maxims out by this point and were spitting away at the Sibour ranks, mowing down even those fighters who had kept their buffalo-hide shields. The hazy air stank of gore and burnt gunpowder.
“We must retreat,” Anyango said. “Else they’ll massacre us all!”
“Where should we go?” Jack asked. “How do we make sure they don’t catch up to us?”
“I know where to go,” Oburu said.
Anyango handed her brother an ivory bugle from her loincloth, and he sounded a loud blare through it. All the remaining Sibour warriors turned away from the battle, shouting orders to one another to retreat. Together, they stampeded back toward the south, trampling tents, bodies, and even what remained of the rude palisade at the camp’s edge until they were back on the plains beyond. And still they ran on.
Jack had hoped the British would not bother pursuing their attackers, yet the pith-helmeted bastards had chosen instead to storm close behind, pausing every so often only to bang or sputter away at the Sibour rear with their guns. For his part, Jack would not let them slaughter his allies without taking losses themselves. Whenever he needed a break from running, he would turn to shoot at the British horde, and so did many of the Sibour alongside him.
Oburu pointed to a large dark cave digging into one of the western foothills up ahead. “That’s an old gold mine of ours. We’ll go in there!”
Once they had reached the cave’s mouth, Jack hastened to pick up a stick, rub its tip with some tallow he carried on him for emergencies like this, and lit it with his cigarette lighter to make a torch which he held while they entered the mine. They jogged around wooden beams which held up the earthen ceiling, and the firelight gleamed off specks and nuggets of gold that remained embedded in the walls. Jack could not resist picking off one of these nuggets for himself.
Anyango pulled him back by the shoulders. “Wait until you have my brother’s permission after this is over, mzungu.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Jack said, returning the nugget to where he had uncovered it. “I must’ve gotten greedy again.”
Anyango smiled. “It’s alright. We’re almost there anyway.”
A khaki-sleeved arm shot out of the darkness to grab around her arms and body. From the light of Jack’s torch, the British colonel’s monocle and gold fillings glinted.
“There’s no need to heed this savage’s admonitions, my Yankee friend,” Struthers said. He licked the grimacing Anyango’s neck like she was a sugary treat. “I must admit, though, that she’s comely for a negress. My nephew might appreciate her as a mistress…as would I.”
Bayoneted rifle barrels stabbed out from the blackness behind him. In turn the Sibour pointed their own weapons at the British.
“How about we resolve this like gentlemen instead?” the colonel asked. “Oburu, King of the Sibour, if you can agree to pay your previous dues, plus a little more, we can end this all without any more bloodshed. What say you, old chap?”
“What do you mean by ‘a little more’?” Oburu asked.
Struthers smacked his lips. “For one, your lovely sister here.”
Without even a second of hesitation, Jack smacked the colonel’s face with his rifle’s stock. After Struthers let go of Anyango and staggered back with a bent and bloodied nose, she finished him off with one shot of her own gun. After she did so, she and Jack ducked below the following volley of British gunfire while Oburu slammed his body against the nearest supporting beam. The support toppled, and with it descended an avalanche of gold-studded earth until it formed a thick wall that blocked the Britons from the Sibour.
“This mine has an exit on the other side of the hill, but the British shouldn’t know about it,” Oburu said. “We should be safe for the time being.”
“You sure are one cunning devil, Your Highness!” Jack exclaimed.
Oburu placed a hand on his shoulder. “Whoever you are, it’s you whom I should thank. I would’ve never gotten out of that horrible camp. Well, you and my beloved sister.”
Oburu and Anyango embraced one another and smiled together at Jack, who acknowledged their gratitude by tipping his hat.
Among the Sibour warriors, Jack found another pair hugging one another. It was Maulidi, his old Swahili guide, and the boy Jack had seen holding the colonel’s teapot back at the camp.
“And thank you for bringing my son back to me as well, Bwana Erwin,” Maulidi said. “I thought I would never see him again.”
Jack tipped his hat a second time. “Glad to have helped.”
The joyous rumble of drums reverberated across the central plaza in the capital of the Sibour kingdom, accompanied by the blaring of horns, the twanging of lyres, and the cheering and clapping of the masses. They danced along with the flames of the bonfire in the middle of the plaza, the glow of which swayed over the thatched roofs and earthen walls of the city’s architecture. The air was thick with the fragrances of tropical fruits, ugali porridge, and roast beef which servants distributed among the celebrators.
At the end of the plaza which adjoined the entrance of arching elephant tusks to his palatial compound, King Oburu of the Sibour sat on his throne of gold-encrusted ebony, his rejuvenated figure bedecked with glossy green and black silk, a leopard-skin shawl, and loops of gold, copper, and diamonds around his neck and limbs. The ostrich and fishing-eagle feathers of his crown waved in the wind like they were dancing to the music. To his left sat his sister Anyango, dressed in finery rivaling her brother’s, and Jack Erwin beside her.
Oburu stood up from his throne with his arms held up, and the music and spectators silenced to let him speak. “My people, as your king, I thank you all for the generous welcoming you have given me upon my return. Our revolt against the British is not over, and it may turn out that we will not win in the long run. With that acknowledged, tonight we must celebrate the small victory we have been able to win in the recent raid of Camp Struthers. And we must show our gratitude to the two people to whom I owe my restored freedom.
“Let us have a round of applause for my sister Anyango as well as Jack Erwin the American!”
The clapping and hooting of the villagers was louder than the drums before. Never in his life had Jack received so much adulation from anyone. His cheeks warmed.
Oburu turned to face Jack. “As a token of gratitude to you, Jack Erwin, I grant thee the right to enrich yourself and your struggling family with as many diamonds and nuggets of gold from our land as you see fit. Do you accept this, Jack?”
Jack nodded. “I’ll send my family as much as they need, but if it’s alright with you, Your Highness, I’d like to stay here for a while.”
He connected his hands with Anyango, who fluttered her eyelashes at him with a giggle. The layer of shea butter coating her skin gave her a sweet scent and a sheen brighter even than her jewelry.
Oburu smiled. “That too I can grant. You can stay as long as you like, Jack Erwin.”
Jack and Anyango scooted closer to one another, exchanging smiles and shining gazes. There was one diamond Jack did not intend to send to his family, but rather keep it to himself. It was the big one he had found back at the Sparkling Mountain. Once he had gotten to know the fierce and beautiful Anyango better, he would give her the diamond after having it mounted on a ring.
On one condition, of course.