For several nights the plain below the plateau had been a sea of moonlight, white, ethereal, fragile as spun glass. Each evening the shadow of the mountains had shortened, drawing close under the skirts of the hills. In stately orderly progression the quality of the night world was changing. The heavy brooding darkness was being transformed to a fairy delicacy of light.

And the life of the world seemed to feel this change, to be stirring, at first feebly, then with growing strength. The ebb was passed; the tides were rising to the brim. Each night the throb of the drums seemed to beat more passionately, the rhythm to become quicker, wilder: the wailing chants of the women rose in sudden gusts of frenzy. Dark figures stole about in shadows; so that Kingozi, becoming anxious, gave especial instructions, and delegated trusty men to see that they were obeyed.

"If our men get to fooling with their women, they'll spear the lot of us!" he explained.

And at last, like a queen whose coming has been prepared, a queen in whose anticipation life had quickened, the moon herself rose serenely above the ranges.

Immediately the familiar objects changed; the familiar shadows vanished. The world became a different world, full of enchantment, of soft-singing birds, of chirping insects, of romance and recollections of past years, of longings and the spells of barbaric Africa.

Kingozi sat with the Leopard Woman "talking business" when this miracle took place. When the great rim of the moon materialized at the mountain's rim, he abruptly fell silent. The spell had him, as indeed it had all living things. From the village the drums pulsed more wildly, shoutings of men commenced to mingle with the voices of the women; a confused clashing sound began to be heard. In camp the fires appeared suddenly to pale. A vague uneasiness swept the squatting men. Their voices fell: they exchanged whispered monosyllables, dropping their voices, they knew not why.

The Leopard Woman arose and glided to the edge of the tree's shadow, where she stood gazing upward at the moon. Kingozi watched her. He, old and seasoned traveller as he was, had indeed fallen under the spell. He did not consider it extraordinary, nor did it either embarrass or stir his senses, that standing as she did before the moon and the little fires her body showed in clear silhouette through her silken robe. Apparently this was her only garment. It made a pale nimbus about her. She seemed to the vague remnant of Kingozi's thinking perceptions like a priestess--her slim, beautiful form erect, her small head bound with the golden fillet from which, he knew, hung the jewel on her forehead. As though meeting this thought she raised both arms toward the moon, standing thus for a moment in the conventional attitude of invocation. Then she dropped her arms, and came back to Kingozi's side.

Again it was like magic, the sudden blotting out of the slim human figure, the substitution of the draped form as she moved from the light into the shadow. But on Kingozi's retina remained the vision of her as she was. He shifted, caught his breath.

As she came near him his hand closed over hers, bringing her to a halt. She did not resist, but stood looking down at him waiting. He struggled for an appearance of calm.

"Who are you?" he asked unsteadily. "You have never told me."

"You have named me--Bibi-ya-chui--the Woman of the Leopards."

She was smiling faintly, looking down at him through half-closed eyes.

"But who are you? You are not English."

"My name: you have given it. Let that suffice. Me--I am Hungarian." She stooped ever so slightly and touched the upstanding mop of his wavy hair. "What does it matter else?" she asked softly.

She was leaning: the moonlight came through the branches where she leaned; the little fires--again the silken robes became a nimbus--and the drums of the _n'goma_, the drums seemed to be throbbing in his veins----

He leaped to his feet and seized her savagely by the shoulders. The soft silk slipped under his fingers. She threw back her head, looking at him steadily. Her eyes glowed deep, and the jewel on her forehead. Kingozi was panting.

"You are wonderful--maddening!" he muttered. This sudden unexpected emotion swept him away, as a pond, quiet behind the dam, becomes a flood.

"I knew we could be such friends!" she said.

And then one of those tiny incidents happened that so often change the course of greater events. In the darkness that still lingered the other side of the camp an _askari_ challenged sharply some lurking wanderer. According to his recent teaching he used the official word.

"_Samama!_" said he.

The metallic rattle of his musket and the brief official challenge awakened Kingozi as would a dash of cold water. His instinct to crush to his breast this alluring, fascinating, willing goddess of the moon was as strong as ever. But across that instinct lay the shadow of a former day. A clear picture flashed before his mind. He saw a man in the uniform of a high office, and heard that man's words of instruction to himself. The words had concluded with a few informal phrases of trust and confidence. While these were being spoken, outside a sentry had challenged: "_Samama!_" and as he moved, the metal of his accoutrements had clicked.

With a wrench Kingozi turned, dropping her shoulders. He deliberately ran away. At the edge of his own camp he looked back. She was still standing as he had left her. The moonlight, striking through the opening in the branches, fell across her. At this distance she was merely a white figure; but Kingozi saw her again as she had stood in invocation to the moon. As though she had only awaited his turning, she raised her hand in grave salutation and disappeared.

Kingozi was too restless, too stirred, to sit still. After a vain attempt to smoke a quiet and ruminative pipe he arose and began to wander about. The men looked up at him furtively from their little fires where perpetually meat roasted. He strode on through the camp. His feet bore him to the narrow lane leading to the village. Down the vista he saw flames leaping, and figures leaping wildly, too, and the drums beat against his temples. He turned back seeking quiet, and so on through camp again, and past the Leopard Woman's tent. His mind was in a turmoil. No perception reached him of outside things--once the disturbance of human creatures was past. His feet led him unconsciously.

It was the old struggle. He desired this woman mightily. That he had been totally indifferent to her before argued nothing. He had been suddenly awakened: and he was in the prime of life. But the very strength of his desire warned him. If he had really been on a hunt for ivory--well--he wrenched his mind savagely from even a contemplation of possibilities. Still, it would be a very sweet relation in a lonely life--a women of this quality, this desirability, this understanding, able to travel the wilderness of Africa, eager for the life, young, beautiful, tingling with vitality. In spite of himself Kingozi played with the thought. The fever was in his brain, the magic of the tropic moon was flooding his soul.

Some warning instinct brought him back to the world about him. His steps had taken him down the canon trail. He stood at the edge of the open plain.

Facing him and not twenty yards distant stood a lion.

The sight cleared Kingozi's brain of all its vapours. For the first time he realized clearly what he had done. He, a man whose continued existence in this dangerous country had depended on his unfailing readiness, his ever-present alertness and presence of mind, had committed two of the cardinal sins. In savage Africa no man must at any time stir a foot into the veldt or jungle unarmed; in savage Africa no man must go at night fifty feet from a fire without a torch or lantern.

By day a lion is usually harmless unless annoyed. Game herds manifest no alarm at his presence, merely opening through their ranks a lane for his indifferent passing. But at night he asserts his dominion.

Kingozi realized his deadly peril. The beast bulked huge and black--a wild lion is a third larger than his menagerie relative--looking as big as a zebra against the moonlight. His eyes glowed steadily as he contemplated this interloper in his domain. After a moment he sank prone, extending his head. The next move, Kingozi knew, would be the flail-like thrash of the long tail, followed immediately by the rush.

Nothing was to be done. The immediate surroundings were bare of trees, and in any case the lightning charge of the beast would have caught his victim unless the branches had happened to be fairly overhe............