Anjani the Mighty. John Russell Fearn

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СКАЧАТЬ the matter?” Rita asked in surprise, looking about her.

      “I heard sounds, not of the night.”

      Anjani rose to his feet and stood tensed, like a gigantic statue, Rita still lounging at his feet. Then she gasped in surprise as the—to her—inaudible noise Anjani had detected abruptly took shape in a chorus of war-like yells. Out of the darkness from amidst the scattered rocks at the edge of the desert black figures came hurtling, spears upraised.

      “We’re being attacked!” Rita shouted hoarsely, clutching hold of Anjani’s arm. “A savage tribe from somewhere.…”

      Anjani hardly needed telling. He flung her down quickly on her face so that the suddenly hurtling spears were not likely to strike her. Chaos hit the camp as, completely outnumbered, the Untani warriors and the yacht’s crew fought frantically with the oncoming hordes. It seemed pretty obvious they had been concealed behind the rocks, watching their chance.

      Anjani crouched, swaying his body from side to side to dodge the spears that hurtled towards him, and so perfectly coordinated were his actions, and so keen his night-sight, he escaped harm. Then he leapt into action as the Untani and ship’s crew battled savagely, guns exploding and spears whizzing through the darkness.

      Leaping suddenly, Anjani brought down the nearest black and drove his knife clean through the warrior’s jugular. In an instant he was up again, slamming a steel-hard fist straight into the face of the tribesman bearing down on the recumbent Rita. The native staggered backwards, his neck broken with the terrific impact of the blow.

      So far Anjani got, then he realised he had been seized from behind, a forearm under his chin and vice-like fingers striving to tear the knife from his grip. It only took Anjani a moment to discover that his attacker was white, and about the same size as himself.

      “Tocoto!” he gasped, and found his knife twisted out of his grip.

      Rita, afraid to move, stared fixedly at the two giant white men in the starlight. The mêlée going on in the half-destroyed camp no longer interested her; even the explosion of guns did not startle her. Her whole interest at the moment was centred on the outcome of this meeting of the twins, the first time they had ever locked in combat.

      The moment his knife was snatched from him, Anjani bent forward suddenly, flinging Tocoto’s huge body over his head and crashing him to the ground. Then they were at each other’s throats, muscles straining to the limit, each striving desperately to crush the life out of the other.

      Rita watched for a moment or two, wincing at the thuds of fists on bone and flesh—then she remembered her revolver and dragged it from its holster. Twisting round so that she was flat on her face, her firing elbow supported on the ground, she waited for an opportunity—only it never came. Before she could fire a warrior came out of the darkness, tore the gun from her hand, and whirled her to her feet.

      She fought frantically to free herself from the black, steel-strong body, but without avail.

      “Anjani!” she screamed, as a black hand strove to smother her mouth. “Anj—”

      Anjani heaved, goaded by her cries. He whipped up a blinding uppercut that took his twin clean on the nose and pulped blood out of it. A terrific right to the jaw followed, and another piston blow into the stomach. Without realising it, he had given three punches that Joe Louis might have envied. Tocoto gulped and slewed round drunkenly—and in those seconds Anjani tore free of him and hurtled to the warrior bearing Rita away.

      The warrior had to drop the girl to battle with his enemy, but he hardly stood a chance. His head exploded in sparks as a fist crashed into his eye. Another blow flayed a deep cut across his cheek, a third swung him clean off his feet and dropped him six yards away, dazed and helpless. Anjani picked up the warrior’s spear, swung it round, then found himself borne to the ground by six warriors in a sudden vengeful rush. There was just nothing he could do against superior numbers, and he had to submit as he was bound tightly with thongs about the wrists and ankles. In dumb fury he watched Rita being similarly pinioned, and he growled in animal fury as she was flung unceremoniously beside him.

      Tocoto came up in the starlight, rubbing his blood-smeared nose with the back of his hand. With a simple call he withdrew the rest of his warriors from the camp, leaving behind many dead and mortally injured white men, and the scattered survivors of the Untani, far too battered to fight any more.

      “If you doubt, Anjani, who is lord of jungle, you now know,” Tocoto said, in the tribal tongue. “Tocoto lord because I have jewel of Akada. The drums have told all the tribes that I am Tocoto the Mighty.”

      “Not while I live,” Anjani snarled back.

      “Anjani and white woman soon die,” Tocoto retorted. “Die as sacrifices to the Banwui tribe—Tocoto’s tribe! Mantamiza cheated once, but not again. Tribal god demands vengeance, and shall have it. Tocoto watch what you do and gather tribes to aid him. When time was ripe, Tocoto struck—and destroyed those who help you. Only one lord of jungle, Anjani, and that is Tocoto the Mighty.”

      Rita, not understanding the jargon, looked from one to the other in the tropical starlight, trying vainly to gather what was going to happen. She found out quickly enough when a warrior, at Tocoto’s command, picked her up like a child and slung her over his shoulder. Four more warriors lifted Anjani’s great body between them, then the victorious tribesmen began marching with Tocoto at their head.

      Just what had been left behind at the camp neither Anjani nor Rita knew. Certainly few who could be of help. The score of Untani warriors had been sadly depleted, and the white men had all but been wiped out. For Anjani and Rita, the journey on which they were carried seemed endless, and filled with torture. The only liberty Tocoto permitted in the few halts which were made were for the rope-thongs to be loosened a little and food and water, in meagre supply provided—but in the main it was a jolting journey on the shoulders of the warriors, through the desert first, then in the midst of the jungle with its myriad dangers and saturating heat.

      It was a trip that took nearly a week, and at the end of it Rita was more dead than alive. Anjani was blond-bearded and grim, his daily shave with his hunting knife having been prevented. At the journey’s end, Rita looked with bleared eyes at the stockade gateway of the Banwui tribe’s village with the hideous effigy of Mantamiza, the tribal god, rearing at its far end amidst the mud-huts. She licked her parched lips and gave Anjani a hopeless look.

      He was not looking at her, or the village; instead, he was viewing the sky where it peeped through the lofty treetops. The air was leaden with heat and stiflingly still. Yet the sun was not shining. There was a leaden yellow haze over the blueness.

      Anjani did not say what thought had crossed his mind, but Rita fancied she saw the ghost of a smile amidst his magnificent yellow beard and moustache; then her arms were seized again, and she was bundled forward across the dusty centre of the village, and finally into a mud-hut. Anjani was flung after her and the wood and raffia door closed. But outside it remained the shadows of three natives on guard.

      “Won’t they even give us water?” Rita whispered, her tongue nearly too swollen to permit of speech.

      “I doubt it,” Anjani muttered. “They have no reason to be merciful, since they mean to burn us to death at nightfall. It would not be sensible to make the victim comfortable, would it?”

      Rita did not answer. Half-sobbing, she flung herself down on the filthy dry grass of the hut. Anjani crouched and looked at her. Her once trim white costume was torn to shreds with thorns and undergrowth. Scratched white flesh showed here and there, and СКАЧАТЬ