Sunbird by Wilbur Smith Page B

bush-rats threaded on a stick like kebabs, and grilled over the open coals without gutting or removal of the skin. The hair frizzled off in the fire and stank like burning rags.
    'I think I'm going to throw up,' murmured Sally palely as she watched the relish with which our two friends ate, but she didn't.
    'Why do they call you Sunbird?' she asked later, and I repeated her question to. Xhai.
    He jumped up and did his celebrated imitation of a sun-bird, darting his head and fluttering his hands. It was convincingly done, for bushmen are wonderful observers of nature.
    'They say that's how I act when I get excited,' I explained.
    'Yes!' Sally exclaimed, clapping her hands with delight as she recognized me, and then they were all laughing.
    In the morning we went to the cave together, all four of us, and in that setting the little men were completely at home. I photographed them, and Sally sketched them as they sat on the rocks by the pool. She was fascinated by their delicate little hands and feet, and their enlarged buttocks, a recognized anatomical peculiarity named steatopygia, which enabled them to store food like a camel stores water, against the contingencies of the wilderness. Ghal remarked to Xhai on the activity in which Sally and I had been engaged beside the pool when he discovered us the previous day, and this led to much earthy comment and laughter. Sally wanted to know the source of it, and when I told her she blushed like a sunset, which was a pleasant change, for I am usually the blusher.
    The bushmen were enthusiastic over Sally's sketches, and this enabled me to lead them naturally to the rock paintings.
    'They are the paintings of our people,' Xhai boasted. 'This has been our place from the beginning.'
    I pointed out the portrait of the white king and Xhai explained frankly, without any of the reserve or secrecy I had expected.
    'He is the king of the white ghosts.'
    'Where did he live?'
    'He lives with his army of ghosts on the moon,' Xhai explained - and my critics accuse me of being a romantic!
    We discussed this at some length, and I learned how the ghosts fly between moon and earth, how they are well disposed towards the bushmen, but care should be taken as the common forest devils will sometimes masquerade as white ghosts. Ghal had mistaken me for one of these.
    'Have the white ghosts ever been men?' I asked.
    'No, certainly not.' Xhai was a little put out by the question. 'They were always ghosts, and they have always lived on the moon and these hills.'
    'Have you ever seen them, Xhai?'
    'My grandfather saw the ghost king.' Xhai avoided the question with dignity.
    'And this, Xhai,' I pointed out the drawings of the stone wall with its chevrons and towers, 'what is this?'
    'That is the Moon City,' Xhai answered readily.
    'Where is it - on the moon?'
    'No. It is here.'
    'Here?' I demanded, my blood starting to race. 'You mean on these hills?'
    'Yes.' Xhai nodded, and took another bite of his five-dollar cigar.
    'Where, Xhai? Where? Can you show it to me?'
    'No.' Xhai shook his head regretfully.
    'Why not, Xhai? I am your brother. I am of your clan,' I pleaded. 'Your secrets are my secrets.'
    'You are my brother,' Xhai agreed, 'but I cannot show you the City of the Moon. It is a ghost city. Only when the moon is full and the white ghosts come down, then the city stands upon the plain below the hills - but in the morning it is gone.'
    My blood no longer raced, and my excitement cooled.
    'Have you seen the Moon City, Xhai?'
    'My grandfather saw it, once long ago.'
    'Grandpa was a big mover,' I remarked bitterly in English.
    'What is it?' Sally wanted to know.
    'I'll explain later, Sal,' I said, and turned back to the old bushman. 'Xhai, in all your life have you ever seen such a city as this? A place of tall stone walls, of round stone towers? I don't mean here at these hills, but anywhere. In the north, by the great river, in the desert of the west - anywhere?'
    'No,' said Xhai, 'I have never seen such a