Chapter Nineteen.
“Diane Chasseresse.”
For, from above, came a clamour of sound. Thornhill was riding along the upper side of the kloof, Manamandhla was beating down the centre, where the watercourse ran, and Mlamvu, the other native, was making daylight hideous with the wild whoops and yells that marked his progress. The dogs, questing to and fro, filled the air with their deep-mouthed ravings.
This racket faint at first, drew nearer and nearer, where the two girls stood, behind their cover of bush and stone. There came a sound of crashing through the bushes, making straight towards them. Edala held her gun in right business-like fashion—no mere toy-gun but an up-to-date Number 12 hammerless—ready to bring to her shoulder. The other was in a very whirl of excitement. Then the sound ceased.
“It has gone back,” she whispered. “Never mind. Father will get it.”
Even as she spoke the clamour of the dogs was renewed, and, with it, a distant shot, away up on the hillside behind. But at the same time another sound of disturbance, not so violent, but much nearer, and—this too was coming straight towards them.
Edala set her lips. Her gaze was concentrated on a point where the more open ground seemed to triangle into the thicker bush. Then, something leaped into the open, and crossed in leisurely bounds in front of them. It was a magnificent bushbuck ram—whose spiral horns, almost straight, looked of record length. Edala’s gun was at her shoulder and the report rang out. The full charge of Treble A ripped through the dark, chocolate coloured hide, and the beast fell, as though knocked over by a stone, kicking and rolling, and uttering a raucous, agonised bellow.
“Oh, well done! well done!” cried Evelyn, clapping her hands and springing forward.
“Keep back—keep back,” warned Edala, restraining her. “Didn’t I tell you they could be dangerous? And this one has a kick left in him yet.”
He certainly had, for although the charge had crippled him it had been planted rather far back, and now the buck rose on his forelegs, still bellowing savagely and shaking his needle pointed horns.
“I’ll give him another shot,” said Edala. “Wait now.”
But before she had quite got her aim on, the dogs rushed out of the bush and flung themselves open-mouthed on the wounded quarry. Snarling and leaping, they avoided the formidable horns, and, making their attack carefully from the rear, in a moment had pulled down the stricken animal, not, however, before one of them had received an ugly gash along the ribs.
“Well done, little one,” sang out Thornhill, who was coming down the slope towards them. “You’ve opened the day well, anyhow. What do you think, Evelyn?”
“Oh, it was splendid. But I don’t know. It’s a little different to pheasant shooting,” she added, with a look at the copious effusion of blood, which the dogs were eagerly lapping.
“Yes, of course. Oh well, you needn’t look at this part of it,”—as Manamandhla, who had come up, was setting to work on the butchering side of the sport. “We’ll drive on now and give those other two chaps a show. By the way, I got another up there. It was only a half grown ram, and rather far, so I downed him with a bullet.”
“Come on, Evelyn. We’ll help drive,” cried Edala.
“No—no,” struck in her father. “You girls would get torn to pieces down there, with your skirts. You go along outside where the bush ends. Very likely something’ll jump out there.”
But nothing did. They heard the sudden clamour raised by the dogs in full cry, and could mark the course of the quarry by the tremble of the bush fronds as it crashed through—then, far down the kloof, a shot rang out from where Prior was posted. Suddenly there was a strange squawking call, and two large reddish birds rose into the air.
“Vaal koorhaan, by Jingo!” ejaculated Edala, reining in her mount. It was an old shooting pony and stood like a stone. Up went her gun—and with the report one of the birds swerved violently while a cloud of feathers puffed from its side; then it fell heavily to the ground. Its mate still uttering the same squawking cry, was fast disappearing into space.
“That’s splendid,” cried the girl sliding from her horse to pick up the bird; which had been killed clean, and lay with outspread wings. “Fifty paces or very near it. You know, Evelyn, vaal koorhaan are not common, and you can hardly ever get within shot range of them. You can ‘down’ them with a rifle of course, but not often, for they’re precious slim. Lovely feathers too. You shall have them for a hat, in memento of your first hunt.”
“Thanks. That will be jolly,” stroking the beautiful red-brown and pearl-grey plumage. “And they’re so soft. What sort of bird is it, Edala?”
“Kind of little bustard,” answered Edala, who was tying it on the ‘D’ of her saddle. “Ripping good skoff they are, too. I say—there’s a bombardment going on down there. Wonder what they’ve got.”
For below, in the near distance, two double reports had rung out, then a single one. The yelling of the dogs, and the whooping of the beaters had arrived at a climax of clamour, then suddenly ceased.
“Look out,” exclaimed Edala excitedly and in a low tone, as she slid from her horse. “There’s something coming out here. No. It has broken back, whatever it is—” noting the tremulous line among the branches beneath and an occasional faint thud as of hoofs. “Well, let’s go down and see what they’ve got.”
On reaching the spot, where all now had foregathered, it transpired that Prior had turned over two bushbuck ewes, while Elvesdon pleaded guilty to shamefully missing a ram with both barrels.
“Never mind, we’ve not done so badly,” pronounced Thornhill. “Four bucks to four guns out of one kloof isn’t altogether rotten. Edala, what have you got there? A vaal koorhaan, by the living Jingo. Sitting or on the wing?”
“As if I should answer that!” was the reply, in scathing accents.
“She shot it from the saddle too,” put in Evelyn.
“From the saddle did she? Well done, little girl. Well, that is something like.”
Prior gave a loud whistle.
“By Jingo, I should think it was! Why, it’s a record, Miss Thornhill.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Old Witvoet is very steady,” said the girl. “It’s like shooting from an armchair.”
They talked and laughed, and compared notes, while Manamandhla and the two other natives—for one more had overtaken them according to instructions—were engaged in gralloching the quarry; to them a congenial task, for many a tid-bit in the shape of liver and heart found its way surreptitiously into their mouths. The dogs pounced hungrily upon the refuse that was thrown them.
“Not a nice sight, Miss Carden,” said Elvesdon, who had noticed a slight grimace of disgust. “Well, don’t look at it. These are the little unpleasantnesses inseparable from this kind of sport, you know.”
“Oh of course. Why it was foolish of me to even seem to mind. I won’t again.”
Then the word was given to move on. The quarry was placed in trees, where it could be collected after the day’s doings were over, and they began on the next kloof. But it proved a blank, except for an ugly bloated puff adder which Prior cut in two with a charge of shot on the way to take up his position, and by the time they had beaten out the bush, the sun and a fine healthy appetite owned to on the part of all hands, warned that it was high time for something substantial in the way of refreshment.
“Here we are,” cried Edala, as they topped a rise, “and here comes the skoff,” as the figures of two native women, each with a substantial basket on her head could be seen approaching by a narrow bush path. “This is Bees’ Nest Kloof, Evelyn. I’ve never brought you here yet. Look. Half way up that krantz there’s a good sized cleft which holds the bees’ nest, and it’s always there because no one can possibly get at it to take it out. If you get them against the sun you can see the bees going in and out.”
“So they are,” said Evelyn shading her eyes. The krantz was a small one, about fifty or sixty feet high, and in its shade they all dismounted. In a trice the baskets were unpacked—knives and forks, enamelled plates and cups, and several substantial looking parcels being laid out on a rug. Thornhill extracted a comfortable looking bottle.
“Elvesdon, help yourself. Prior, have a glass of grog. We’ve all earned it at any rate.”
The while the boys had got together a fire and as by magic a boiling kettle of coffee was before the party. And the cold viands were done very ample justice to, for the open air in South Africa is the finest appetiser in the world, and have we not said that Ramasam was an exceptionally good cook?
“Well, this is the very jolliest kind of picnic,” pronounced Elvesdon, as he lay in cool comfort on the sward, after they had lunched, filling his pipe.
“Hear hear!” cried Prior emphatically, beginning to perform a like operation. “I say, sir. Give us a fill from yours. My gwai has all run to dust.” Elvesdon chucked him his pouch.
The two girls were busy putting away the things. They had rejected offers of help.
“We know where to pack the things and you don’t,” Edala had said. “You sit still and smoke, then you’ll shoot all the better for it.”
“Thanks, Miss Thornhill,” answered Elvesdon, remembering his double miss.
“Oh, I didn’t mean anything, really I didn’t. Never mind. There’ll be plenty of chances of retrieving your character.”
“Won’t you come and stand near me at the next voer-ly?” he said. “Then you’ll have all the fun of being an eye-witness.”
She laughed.
“Yes, you’d have to be on your mettle then. Well I’ll come and encourage you. I don’t think I’ll shoot just yet, myself. I believe I’ve ever so slight a touch of headache. Later, perhaps—when it gets cooler.”
Then Prior had begun to express unbounded concern. Why of course Miss Thornhill ought to keep quiet, and as much out of the sun as possible. A headache! Fancy that! and no wonder, since it had been so jolly hot—and so on, and so on—till his official chief experienced a savage desire to kick him soundly, in that the blundering idiot was drawing attention to a little arrangement he was wanting to bring off quite unostentatiously.
However, that had soon passed, and now Elvesdon lay there, puffing out smoke, and in full enjoyment of life and this situation therein. He was not overmuch inclined to talk, either; a deficiency for which his subordinate seemed abundantly inclined to make up. He was watching the girl, as she moved about; the erect poise of the gold-crowned head, the swift play of the thick lashes, the straight glance of the clear blue eyes, the full throat, the mellow, clear, whole-hearted laugh. Everything about her, every movement, so natural and unstudied; the flash of each smile which lighted up her face—ah, all this had had too large a share in his dreaming and waking hours of late.
Then he found himself comparing her with Evelyn Carden. The latter—sweet, gracious, reposeful—would have appealed—appealed powerfully to many men; but there was no comparison between the two, decided this one. He looked at Thornhill, now as he had done since the doctor’s revelation, in a new light. How could it be true? How could such a man as this have been by any means led into the committal of a cold-blooded murder. No. The idea could not be entertained—not for one single moment could it, he decided. And yet—!
The place where they rested was an ideal of sylvan loveliness, the green glade overhung by the rugged face of the cliff, from whose ledges and interstices jutted here and there the spider-like spikiness of sprouting aloes, or the slender stiff stem of the Kafir bean. Away on three sides swept the tumbled masses of bush verdure; here a ridge, there a rift; in whose cool, shaded depths the melody of bird voices made music without ceasing. Beyond, a towering mountain cone, its steep sides shimmering in the mid-day heat against the deep blue of an unclouded sky, and the splendid air, warm yet invigorating, hummed to the music of harvesting-bees. Even the group of natives, squatted a little distance off, lent a picturesque feature as they talked in a drowsy undertone, and the great, rough-haired dogs lying on their sides panting in the shade bore their part in the picture. And the day was but half through—and there was that gold-crowned head dazzling his glance as though he were gazing at the sun—and life was very well worth living indeed—and there, not so very many miles away, in just such a sweet and restful spot as this, lay the mangled body of dead Teliso; for so do the tragic and the idyllic run side by side on parallel rails. By and bye these might be destined to converge.