Chapter Twenty.
Manamandhla’s Escape.
The horses were caught and saddled up. As they rode forth from their resting place, Edala was exchanging banter with Elvesdon, and in the ring of her dear merry laugh there was no suggestion of a sufferer from headache.
“Now then,” said Thornhill, reining in at the head of a long, deep, wild ravine. “We must arrange our strategy.” And he looked from the one to the other.
“I’ll go and see Mr Elvesdon miss,” said Edala, unhesitatingly. “I know exactly where to place him, and he’ll have the best chances of missing he’s ever had in his life.”
There was a laugh at this, led by the victim himself.
“Then who’ll take care of Miss Carden?”
Prior looked up eagerly, but before he could say anything, Evelyn remarked quietly:—
“Do let me ride with you, Mr Thornhill. It will be just as interesting to see how the things are driven out, as to see how they are shot.”
“But, I’m going down into the thick of the kloof this time. How about skirts?”
“Oh, that’s all right. I’ll keep behind you when it gets thick.”
“Very well then if you do that. There’s a tolerable attempt at a path down there. Prior, you keep along the top, on the right—hundred yards in front of us, or a little more.”
Thornhill was pleased. He was glad to have Evelyn with him. There was something about her that was both congenial and restful. And then she was so tactful and considerate. As a matter of fact he had been meditating whether to ask her to accompany him, but had decided not to. Why should she be bored with an old fogey, while there were young ones in the party? And she—well she must have read his thoughts, and of her own initiative had offered to accompany him. This was the sort of thing that Edala never did. Time had been, when as a child she had adored him, when his every word was law, when she would give up anything and everything to be with him. Now, all this was reversed. In these days she never thought of consulting his wishes, let alone of forestalling them; and the change had caused him many an hour of bitter reflection and disappointment.
“We can start now,” he pronounced. “Those two will have had time to get into position.”
They moved forward and downward, keeping near the bottom of the kloof, while the three natives, spread out on each side, whooped and rapped with their sticks. The way lay now through growth of some denseness, now beneath overhanging trees, or a cliff in miniature, its brow lined with a row of straight stemmed euphorbia. It was hot down here in the kloof, in spite of the abundant shade.
But Evelyn Carden’s thoughts were all upon the man riding in front of her, and she had all but lost sight of the object of their being there at all, sport to wit. This new relative of hers was clean outside all her experience. She admired his strength, his decisive downrightness, his easy refinement of speech and thought; and that in the teeth of the fact that his earlier life had been rough and hard, and, not infrequently perilous. Yet, throughout, those instincts of culture had not only been retained but had developed, and she was forced to own to herself that he was the most delightful companion she had ever met.
And Edala? She was fond of the girl—very—yet there were times when she could not but feel secretly angry with her; she had too much savoir faire, however, to let any trace of it appear. Edala did not appreciate her father in the least: on the contrary she treated him with coldness, even bordering upon repulsion. Of course, of any actuating cause underlying such behaviour she was absolutely ignorant, for they saw no neighbours except perhaps Elvesdon; nor even had they, it is certain that to a stranger and a relative of those concerned, nothing would have been whispered. Besides, was not the whole thing now matter of ancient history?
As they rode along in the bosky shadiness of the deep kloof bottom, the shouts of the beaters on either side, the sudden clangour of the dogs as they struck the spoor of a recently alarmed buck, then the crack of a shot down at the farther end, it seemed to Evelyn Carden that the experience was wholly delightful and exhilarating. She could hardly have told why—but it was so. She was not so very young, and she had had some experiences of life. Perhaps she preferred not to tell herself the ‘why.’
Thornhill, on his part, was not thinking of her at all by this time, or if so it was only to wish she had elected to accompany someone else, which at first sight seems blackly ungrateful of him. Still less was he thinking of the sport, unless in a mechanical way. But Manamandhla, moving parallel with himself some forty yards distant through the thick, high bush; Manamandhla visible to himself, but both invisible to the rest of the on-driving line, how easy to have mistaken him for a buck—to have mistaken him. It would be rather the act of a Johnny Raw, but then, men of ripe judgment and lifelong experience had been known to make similar mistakes. Surely such a chance would not occur again. If only Evelyn had not volunteered to accompany him.
A fell, lurid obsession had seized upon this man’s mind, yet not so as to obscure his judgment, only to do away utterly with all sense of ruth or compunction. This calm, patient savage, who had reappeared—had risen, as it were, from the very dead, to blood-suck him—to batten upon him for the rest of his natural life—had got upon even his strong nerves. He was ageing, he told himself, and all through this. Again the Zulu’s broad back presented a magnificent mark for a charge of Treble A. There would be an end of the incubus, and ‘accidents will happen.’ But then—there was Evelyn riding immediately behind him.
“Well, Mr Thornhill. We seem to have drawn this fairly blank, too,” said her cheerful, pleasing voice, as the bush thinned out in front of them. “Let’s see what they’ve got There was a shot in front, wasn’t there?”
Elvesdon and Edala were standing, waiting for them. On the ground lay a dead bushbuck ewe.
“‘Diane chasseresse’ again,” cried the former, gaily. “Neat shot too. Going like the wind.”
“Well, you made me do it, you know,” protested Edala. “I said I didn’t want to shoot any more just yet.”
“Of course,” laughed Elvesdon. “It was the first opportunity I’ve had of witnessing your prowess, and I preferred that to your witnessing my lack of it.”
As a matter of fact the speaker was a first-rate shot, but there were days when he was ‘off’—and this was one of them, he said.
“Well, it’s better than nothing,” pronounced Thornhill. “Still, we ought to have got more out of there. We’ll take the next kloof down, then sweep round for home.”
“All right,” cried Edala. “Now Mr Elvesdon, we’ll lay voer again, and this time I’m really going to see you miss.”
“That’ll be a new and delightful experience,” said Elvesdon with his usual imperturbability. As a matter of fact he meant every word he said. He would have this girl to himself for the best part of another hour, in the sweet sunshine of the golden afternoon. What did he care for the business of the day. He could always get sport—but this—no.
So the pair started off once more by a circuitous way, to reach the bottom of the kloof where they should conceal themselves. Thornhill, watching them, felt well satisfied. Things were going just as he would have them. Things sometimes went that way, and when they did there was no point in interfering with them, or hurrying them from outside. At any rate such was his philosophy.
“Now, Evelyn, I daresay Prior will take care of you,” he said. “This kloof is confoundedly tangled and difficult. There are klompies of haakdorrn too, here and there, which would tear that pretty skirt of yours into tatters.”
“But—are you going to drive on again? You don’t ever get a shot down there in that thick bush,” she urged, half reproachfully.
“Oh, don’t I? I’ve an idea I shall this time. You get up along the top side with Prior.”
The fell significance of his words was apparent only to his own mind, as indeed how should it be otherwise? Evelyn obeyed the order unquestioningly. She only said, in a half undertone, “You take care that everybody else gets the lion’s share of the fun, anyhow.”
The foremost pair were hurrying along the ridge, now cantering, now walking. At length they reached their allotted station at the bottom of the kloof. The latter was steep, like the other, only the bush was less thick.
“I don’t care for this end at all,” said Edala, when they had dismounted, and having hidden the horses, returned to take up their position. “Look. I’m sure we’ll be better up there,” pointing to a spot about a hundred yards higher up. “Let’s stand there.”
“Won’t it be a bit risky? You see, your father will expect us to be here, and supposing he were to fire at anything just at that point on the strength of it?”
“That’s not likely. Everything will have run out too far ahead of him by the time he gets there. Come.”
“Oh, all right.”
They dived into the bush, penetrating it higher up into the kloof. By the time they halted it was not the hundred yards it looked, but over two.
“This will do,” she said. “Now you’re not to miss.”
Their position was a little plateau, whence they could see without being seen. First-rate shots could be obtained of everything that ran out—and everything that did run out would pass within easy range, by reason of the narrowness of the way. Above, too, they would have ample warning of anything coming, for the bush though just thick enough, was not too dense.
“Diane chasseresse, you are splendid to-day,” whispered Elvesdon as they took up their position. She looked straight into his face, and on hers came a half resentful expression.
“Oh now, now. That’ll do,” she answered, half pettishly. “I suppose you think because I’m a girl I’ve no business in this sort of thing at all. I know I’m about the only one who goes in for it—except in England. There you get the Duchess of this and the Countess of that, and Lady Tom Noddy and all the rest of them placarded in the illustrated weeklies in shooting costume, with their guns, and so on; but here—oh no, the ordinary she-mortal mustn’t touch sport, just because she is a she. What?”
“Nothing. Don’t be so petulant.”
“Ah—ah! That’s what you were thinking. I know it.”
“Don’t crow now. You’re not a thought-reader. And,”—he added to himself, “I sometimes wish you were.”
She made an impatient movement—something, we believe, of the nature of that which our grandmothers called a ‘flounce.’
“Why shouldn’t I shoot bushbucks?” she said, defiantly. “Tell me.”
“When you have told me when I said you shouldn’t. Now why on earth have you raised all this bother about nothing in the world? Tell me.”
She looked at him for a moment as though not knowing whether to be angry or not. But the insidious imitation of her tone in the last two words was too much, and she burst out laughing.
“Ssh!” he said, reprovingly. “We mustn’t make such a row, or Prior will get all the shots. Nothing will come our way.”
Hardly were the words out of his mouth than the dogs burst into cry again. But the sound did not come their way, whatever had been roused had broken away at right angles. Then away back and above there rang out a shot.
“Prior again,” whispered Elvesdon. “What did I tell you?”
They waited in silence. Then Edala whispered:
“Poor chance now. There’s Manamandhla just underneath. The drive is nearly over.”
The Zulu was, as she had said, just beneath. He had halted, and bending down seemed to be trying to get a thorn out of his foot. At the same time Thornhill appeared in sight riding slowly down the other side. Suddenly he caught sight of Manamandhla.
He was barely a hundred yards away. The very expression of his face, the quick, stealthy manner in which he had dismounted—was apparent to the two watchers—and then—Thornhill was taking deliberate aim at the unconscious Zulu. At that short distance he could not miss.
The sharp, warning cry that escaped the pair came too late—yet not, for the bullet just grazed its intended mark, and glancing off a rock hummed away right over Edala’s head, so near, indeed, that she involuntarily ducked.
“Father. It’s Manamandhla,” she cried. “You nearly shot him.”
“Did I. Serve him right if I had,” came back the answer. “What’s the fool doing stalking on all fours instead of keeping on his hind legs? That’s the way to get shot by mistake in thick bush.”
Edala and her companion had exchanged glances. Neither had meant to do so, wherefore the glance of each was quick, furtive, involuntary. And the glance of each revealed to the other that both knew that that shot had not been fired by mistake at all.
“You nearly shot me too, father,” Edala said, as he joined them, and there was an unconscious coldness in her tone. Thornhill’s face lost colour.
“You had no business to be where you are,” was all he said whatever he may have felt. “Your position was quite two hundred yards further down. Nothing brings about shooting accidents so much as people changing the positions they arranged to take up.”
“Lucky we did or Manamandhla would have been shot,” she returned, and felt angry with herself for being unable to restrain a certain significance in her tone.
“That he most assuredly would. You sang out just too late to keep me from firing but not too late to spoil my aim.”
But the man most concerned, was the least concerned of all. Manamandhla himself to wit. From his demeanour he need not have just experienced the narrowest shave he was ever likely to have in his life. When Thornhill rated him he merely smiled and said nothing.
“Well, we can reckon the day as over,” said Thornhill, as Prior and Evelyn joined them at the bottom of the kloof—the latter had bagged what had been driven out in front of him, a duiker ram to wit. “We might have done better, and we might have done worse. Five bushbucks and a duiker among four guns—”
“And a vaal koorhaan,” put in Elvesdon. “Don’t forget the vaal koorhaan, Thornhill. Diane chasseresse has the honours of the day.”
“Hear, hear!” cried Prior.
Thornhill laughed—easily, carelessly. He instinctively felt that both his daughter and Elvesdon were aware that if his last shot had been successful Manamandhla would have met his death by no accident at all. But he was not the man to give himself away.
“Sorry for your ill luck, Elvesdon,” he said. “We may get another chance on the way home, even now.”
“Oh that’s all right. I’m a bit ‘off’ to-day, I suppose. Better luck next time.”