WORRALS IN THE WILDS
by Captain W. E. Johns
XII. WORRALS SHOWS HER CLAWS (Pages 121 – 135)
Worrals and Dick are unable to get out of their
bonds and Worrals is able to see the witch-doctor
squatting on his haunches just in front of the entrance to the hut. Beyond that, Shardwell
and Gronk are arguing and Worrals can guess what is
going through their minds. Fearing the
consequences of killing a white man, Bill has been put out of the way where
blame could be laid on the Ovambos. Mahomet must have seen too much and been
murdered. But the conspirators now found
themselves with yet another aircraft and two white girls to deal with, as well
as Dick and Andrew. “The long and short
of it was, the plotters now found themselves faced with the necessity of
committing wholesale murder if they were to achieve their object”. Worrals tells Dick
“They’ll try to reopen the negotiations.
If they try that, have nothing to do with them. We don’t deal with crooks”. Shardwell does try
to get Dick to sign over the concession to him but after angry words, Dick
declines. Shardwell tells Ooma
to do the same to Dick and Worrals that he has done
to Bill and he leaves him to it. Worrals watches the witch-doctor with morbid interest as he
prepares to carry out his instructions.
“She found it hard to believe that this bag of bones was a human
being. It was impossible to see his
face, so thickly was it smeared with coloured clays and adorned with gimcrack
ornaments that dangled from his matted hair”.
The witch-doctor, Ooma, prepares his poisonous
potion on a claw and grabs Worrals arm and then two
black hands reach out and grab Ooma by the throat and
wrist. Ingoona
has arrived with Frecks just in time to save
them. Frecks
says Wongorobo was outside but Ingoona
has knocked him out with his club. Worrals says she needs Ooma alive
as only Ooma knows the antidote for Bill. Ooma denies there
is any antidote and he knows they need him alive. Worrals get the
poisoned claw meant for her and “quite deliberately, she drove the point of the
claw in the black arm and held it there”.
Ooma is released and quickly gets a gourd,
obviously containing the antidote, to rub into his own wound. Worrals then takes
the same gourd and applies the antidote to Bill’s wounds. It is now getting towards dawn and the party
need to escape before Shardwell returns. They decide to take Ooma
with them so he can’t raise the alarm.
Four of the native Hereros lift Bill and carry
him out, whilst two take the witch-doctor.
Worrals says “Let’s go”.