Drum Read Online Free Page B

without a change of expression.
    "You come, boy," Akeem motioned to him. "You come, eat."
    Tamboura followed him mechanically, sat where Akeem pointed for him to sit, dumbly accepted the mess of boiled yams and cassava that was placed before him on a broad leaf. He had no desire for food but he recognized strength in the meal, so he ate, slopping the food into his mouth with dirty fingers, chewing and swallowing without tasting. After the food there was water, a small cup of it, hot, greenish and stinking of the goat skin in which it had been carried, but he drank it greedily. His haunches were on the. ground and he knew his earth spirit was helping him because he could feel his strength returning. Suddenly there was a crash in the underbrush and he saw the tawny flesh of a lioness, awakened from her midday sleep by the halt of the caravan and now prowling as near as she dared to scent these strange invaders. The brief glimpse he had of her hindquarters as she leaped through the underbrush gave him further reassurance. His spirit was following him and protecting him. For the first time, he squared his shoulders and looked aroimd.
    Seated not far away from him was a face he recognized. It was that of Sabumbo, the young hunter from his own village. He had been orphaned and lived with his uncle, and now his uncle, in his senile desire for a young wench from a neighboring village, had sold Sabumbo into slavery to pay the price of his young bride.
    His own hands and feet both untied, Tamboura crept down the line, glad of a face that he knew and a mind that encompassed his own village and knew the familiar names and

    the gossip about them all. He squatted on his heels beside Sabumbo, whose feet were bound with a grass rope. Sabumbo looked up at him, recognized him and spat on the ground before turning his face away. |
    "Coward!" Sabumbo spat again. "Afraid of the knife!" :
    "What mean you that I am a coward?" Tamboura's anger so very near the surface met the other's words. "Say that again and I will. . . ." His rage exploded into wordlessness.
    Sabumbo, like all the young men of the village, was a tall, muscular young buck, perhaps a year or so older than Tam-boura. He turned his vapid and rather stupid face toward Tamboura and laughed with derision.
    "My feet may be bound but my hands are not. I suppose you would hit me and then run as you did from the knife last night."
    "Now you say it a second time. I did not run from the knife last night. Think you that if I had run I would be here?"
    Sabumbo considered Tamboura's question and saw some logic in it. His thick lips pressed closely together and, as imderstanding came, he nodded slowly.
    "A slave caffle would be a strange place to run to, but perhaps it would be better than being a renegade. For myself, I do not mind too much being here. But for you! Had you been afraid, you would have run to the bush and joined up with the renegades. No, I do not think you would have sold yourself into slavery."
    "And I did not. I remember nothing after I drank the millet beer in my brother's hut. Bansu, my brother's son, gave it to me."
    "And then your brother came to the group at the fire with downcast eyes and beating his chest. He said that you had fled, afraid of the knife. He said that your blood had turned to water and that you had disgraced him. Ah, Tamboura, it begins to make sense. It was they who drugged your beer and sold you into slavery to get rid of you."
    "So that Bansu may be the next king." Tamboura crept closer to Sabumbo. "I think you are right. I know if, Sabumbo! And now?" He gazed around him. "What now?"
    "Now we are slaves. We're heading down the river and we'll be sold like so many head of cattle."
    "It's bad, Sabumbo?"
    The hunter nodded. "Squat here, boy." He edged over to make room for Tamboura. "When they tie us again, theyH

    not notice and they'll tie you behind me. That means we can be together on the march. We're from the same village and it makes us like