Free Winds of Enchantment by Rosalind Brett

islands shone emerald against the metallic blue of sea and sky, the palms nodded gently. Crabs scuttled and delved in the silvery sand, a dog whined sleepily, and over all hung a shimmering, palpable haze.
    Pat stood very still, impatience suddenly gone. At this moment she knew she was captured ... her heart was in this strange and savage land. For her—and she knew it forcibly right now—the sun could never rise so excitingly anywhere as on Africa’s exotic shores and over its somnolent jungle. Spreading the bright dawn in swift strokes from one end of the bay to the other.
    Cliff came and stood beside her, looking down from under his tilted helmet. “You look pale.” His dark eyes brooded on her face. “Feeling the sun?”
    She shook her head. “Loving the sun,” she murmured.
    “You say that as if you mean it. Has all this got you as well?”
    “I think it has, Cliff. It’s a love-hate thing, isn’t it?” She gave him a thoughtful smile. “Sometimes I curse the heat and the flies, and I shudder at the thought of snakes, but right now the magical side of the coin has got me and I wouldn’t change places with anyone.”
    “Poor Pat.” His smile was ironical. “Welcome to the club.”
    They shook hands and laughed, there in the rich sun. Then the freshened-up boat was dragged to the water’s edge, the cushions arranged, and Pat was handed in by Cliff. One boy stood in the boat, ready with his pole, while the other pushed off and sloshed aboard just as they were turning into one of the channels between the banks.
    Pat could see her father’s figure astride in the other canoe. He waved back to her and she gave him a loving smile, though he was too far ahead to see it. His voice came to her over the water, a rollicking baritone singing one of the shanties that sometimes issued from the new bathroom. Pat gave a little laugh. Bill rather fancied himself in white. His thick figure was not ungainly, and the tough brown skin and rough red hair gave him a look of health and virility.
    His boat was looping between the sandbanks at an astonishing speed and she watched him sway and heard his laughter as he urged the boys to greater efforts. She knew he was promising them money, and presently one of her own boys asked hopefully: “We go quick—like Massa?”
    “No, thanks,” she answered. “If Massa’s not careful, he stick in mud.”
    A second later Bill’s canoe rollicked round a bend and tipped on its side. He lost his balance and smashed into the sea. Pat laughed.
    “The idiot!”
    She watched, waiting confidently for the red head to push up through the water ... but several seconds passed ... he had not yet come up. She stood up, sobered.
    “Faster!” she cried to her own boys. “For heaven’s sake—faster!”
    Other boats from the liner were making for the spot where Bill had disappeared. Pat’s heart began a frantic pounding against her ribs. “Bill, you idiot,” she whispered, “don’t play-act. I—I’m frightened, Bill, Bill ... Father ... please come up!”
    “Bill!” she screamed.
    Two long banks rose between herself and the mishap. Wildly she flung herself in the water, swam to the first eminence and clawed a t the mud. In a desperate frenzy she dragged herself through it and slid down the other side into the next channel and thrust out, swimming strongly through the weed beds, small husky pants coming between her lips as with double her normal strength she struck through the water till her knees caught in the silt of the final bank. She struggled through the soft, yielding stuff, panting painfully now, her throat choked with grit and brine and fear ...
    And then, from where she sprawled on top of the bank, she saw all the sad little boats and the shaking heads. His name died, somewhere low down in her throat, and she slid down, unaware, on to the mud.

 
    CHAPTER SIX
    THE statuette of the Bantu woman stood on the coffee table in the lounge. Most visitors stopped to examine it and to