While I spoke they were forming up again. This time they broke up into a hunting song. When it seemed to have gained its height, it suddenly ceased, and all darted away across the veldt till nearly out of sight in the moonlight.
“What the deuce are they up to now?” said Falkner, filling his pipe.
“You’ll see. Listen. Now they are returning with the game.”
Again the voices broke forth, now returning as I had said, and swelling higher and higher, in a long recitative uttered by some dozen, and replied to in rolling chorus by the whole body.
“They are recounting their exploits now—what game they have got, and how they got it,” I explained, as the singing ceased.
“By Jove, are they?” cried Falkner. “Look here, Glanton, I’ve got an idea. How would it be to scare up a hunt to-morrow, and get a lot of these chaps to help? I’d like to see how they go to work in their own way. That would be worth seeing.”
“Well, it might be managed. What d’you think, Major?”
“A capital idea. But—hang it, we haven’t got our guns.”
“Oh, as to that,” I said, “you could use mine. There’s a shot gun and a rifle, and a rifle and smooth-bore combined. That’ll arm all hands.”
“Well done, Glanton. You’re a jewel of a chap!” cried Falkner, boisterously. “The very thing. But, I say. How about arranging it with them now. No time like the present, eh?”