There were three of them living in that jungle clearing.
There was Royan, the once great white hunter, the man they had given the name of Lion, who sought courage now in the bottom of a bottle.
There was Murat, whom years in the tropics had so corrupted that morality was only a dim, remote memory.
And there was Jeanne, Royan's wife, who loved her husband for what he once had been, but hated him for what he had driven her to now.
They lived there in the heart of the jungle in a kind of trembling prelude to violence, the engineer, the hunter, and the woman who belonged to both - and yet to neither.
There were three of them living in that jungle clearing.
There was Royan, the once great white hunter, the man they had given the name of Lion, who sought courage now in the bottom of a bottle.
There was Murat, whom years in the tropics had so corrupted that morality was only a dim, remote memory.
And there was Jeanne, Royan's wife, who loved her husband for what he once had been, but hated him for what he had driven her to now.
They lived there in the heart of the jungle in a kind of trembling prelude to violence, the engineer, the hunter, and the woman who belonged to both - and yet to neither.