Shout at the Devil by Wilbur Smith

women and the children were not listening that ‘Fini’ was in truth a reincarnation of the Monomatapa. They said further that in the intervening period between his death as the Great King and his latest birth as ‘Fini’, he had been first a monstrous crocodile, and then Mowana Lisa , the most notorious man-eating lion in the history of East Africa, a predator responsible for at least three hundred human killings. The day, twenty-five years previously, that Flynn had stepped ashore at Port Amelia was the exact day that Mowana Lisa had been shot dead by the Portuguese Chef D’Post at Sofala. All men knew these things – and only an idiot would take chances with ‘Fini’ – hence the respect with which they greeted him now.
    Flynn recognized one of the men. ‘Luti,’ he roared, ‘you scab on an hyena’s backside!’
    Luti smiled broadly, and bobbed his head in pleasure at being singled out by Flynn.

    â€˜Mohammed,’ Flynn turned to his man. ‘Where did you find him? Are we near his villager
    â€˜We are a day’s march away.’
    â€˜In which direction?’
    â€˜North.’
    â€˜Then we are in Portuguese territory!’ exalted Flynn. ‘We must have drifted down past the Rovuma river.’
    The Rovuma river was the frontier between Portuguese Mozambique and German East Africa. Once in Portuguese territory, Flynn was immune from the wrath of the Germans. All their efforts at extraditing him from the Portuguese had proved unsuccessful, for Flynn had a working agreement with the Chef D’Post, Mozambique, and through him with the Governor in Lorenço Marques. In a manner of speaking, these two officials were sleeping partners in Flynn’s business, and were entitled to a quarterly financial statement of Flynn’s activities, and an agreed percentage of the profits.
    â€˜You can relax, Bassie boy. Old Fleischer can’t touch us now. And in three or four days we’ll be home.’
    The first leg of the journey took them to Luti’s village. Lolling in their maschilles, hammock-like litters slung beneath a long pole and carried by four of Luti’s men at a synchronized jog trot, Flynn and Sebastian were borne smoothly out of the coastal lowland into the hills and bush country.
    The litter-bearers sang as they ran, and their deep melodious voices, coupled with the swinging motion of the maschille, lulled Sebastian into a mood of deep contentment. Occasionally he dozed. Where the path was wide enough to allow the maschilles to travel side by side, he lay and chatted with Flynn, at other times he watched the changing country and the animal life along the way. It was better than London Zoo.
    Each time Sebastian saw something new, he called across for Flynn to identify it.

    In every glade and clearing were herds of the golden-brown impala; delicate little creatures that watched them in wide-eyed curiosity as they passed.
    Troops of guinea-fowl, like a dark cloud shadow on the earth, scratched and chittered on the banks of every stream.
    Heavy, yellow eland, with their stubby horns and swinging dewlaps, trotting in Indian file, formed a regal frieze along the edge of the bush.
    Sable and roan antelope; purple-brown waterbuck, with a perfect circle of white branded on their rumps; buffalo, big and black and ugly; giraffe, dainty little klip-springer, standing like chamois on the tumbled granite boulders of a kopje. The whole land seethed and skittered with life.
    There were trees so strange in shape and size and foliage that Sebastian. could hardly credit them as existing. Swollen baobabs, fifty feet in circumference, standing awkwardly as prehistoric monsters, fat pods filled with cream of tartar hanging from their deformed branches. There were forests of msasa trees, leaves not green as leaves should be, but rose and chocolate and red. Fever trees sixty feet high, with bright yellow trunks, shedding their bark like the brittle