“Oh indeed, no,” she protested. “I can play music that I can feel—and that is easy, and I began to learn the violin when I was four years old, so that my fingers are pretty supple; but when I think of other people’s playing, such as Sarasate, I realize that I am nothing more than a well-meaning amateur, and never will be otherwise. I cannot master any excessive technical difficulties. I have no brilliancy—still,” with a happy little sigh, “I am glad that you liked it.”
“Yes, my dear,” said her aunt, nodding her head approvingly. “And now let us have something lively. Suppose you play a polka?”
But the violin was already in its case. Honor had laid it there with the air of a mother consigning an infant to its rest.
“Oh, Miss Gordon, what a shame!” expostulated Mark Jervis. “I could lie on this sunny slope, under the rhododendrons, listening to you for days.”
“You would not find it very comfortable in the rains,” remarked Mrs. Brande, with some asperity. She did not approve of penniless young men thus launching compliments at her accomplished niece. “And now we had better be getting on, if we are to reach Binsa before dark.”
The next and last day of their march the party were proceeding as usual in pairs; Honor and Captain Waring led the van, whilst Jervis and Mrs. Brande, who was a heavy load, lagged behind. The further they journeyed, the steeper grew the precipices, the wilder the scenery, the narrower the paths. At one place in the woods, high above them, grazed a herd of so-called tame buffaloes—tame with natives, wild with Europeans. The huge bull, with his hairy head and enormous horns—though he carried a bell—was tame with no one! Hearing strange voices below, he lifted up his hideous china-blue eyes, stared fiercely about him, and then came crashing downhill for some dozen yards, but his prey—Honor and her escort—had already passed by, and were out of reach. He stood still in a meditative attitude, and gave vent to an angry and disappointed bellow.
After a considerable interval, another group came into view. Mrs. Brande’s gay jampannis and scarlet dandy rug settled the question. In half a moment he had blundered through the undergrowth, and placed himself in a warlike attitude upon the path—exactly six yards ahead of the party. The unanimity with which Mrs. Brande’s bearers dropped her, and fled up trees, was only equalled by the agility displayed by the lady herself, in leaping out of the dandy and scrambling down the khud! Nothing remained on the track but the empty vehicle, the buffalo, and Jervis.
He promptly jumped off his pony, snatched up a jampanni’s pole, on the end of which he raised the red rug, and boldly advanced like a matador in the arena. When the bull lowered his ponderous head to charge, he threw the rug over his horns with as much coolness and dexterity as if he had merely to deal with a stuffed animal! But this animal was dangerously animated. Rushing furiously forward, he tumbled blindly over the dandy, and with a loud crash, rolled down the khud, which, luckily for him (and Mrs. Brande) was not of sheer descent. The lady’s piercing screams attracted the notice of her niece, and—of what was far more to the purpose—the boy who was in charge of the herd. Probably he had been fast asleep, but he now came racing through the brushwood, routed up the buffalo, whose fall had undoubtedly quenched his spirit, and drove him away, laden with the hearty curses of the jampannis. These valiant gentlemen had now descended to mother earth, as brave as lions. The rug was in ribbons, the dandy in matchwood, but no one was injured. “What was to be done?” inquired Captain Waring, vainly struggling to preserve a grave countenance, as he saw Mrs. Brande, who presented a truly distressing spectacle, emerging from the bushes, on her hands and knees. The back of her dress was split right across the shoulders, her veil hung round her neck, and she was covered with sand and bits of twigs.
Mark had hastened to her assistance, and her niece, as she picked up her topee and umbrella, asked anxiously “if she was hurt?”
“No,” she panted, sitting down and dusting herself with her handkerchief, “I’m not a bit the worse.”