“Oh, look here, Wyvern. Haven’t you been filling us up with some sick old yarn?” said Le Sage disgustedly. “Why, man, there’s no sign of any dead nigger here. Sure your imagination didn’t play you tricks?”
“Oh, very. No mistake about that—by the way weren’t you saying just now you could smell him?” good-humouredly. “What if some of his pals came and carted him away?”
“Then there’d be spoor, and plenty of it. As it is there’s none. And I do know a little about spoor,” added Le Sage significantly.
“Well it bangs me, I own,” declared Wyvern. “But now we’re here we’d better follow the ditch right up. I don’t feel like taking on that nasty scramble again, do you?”
“No. Drive ahead then.”
Proceeding with some caution, for it was just the place in which to come upon a snake, they made their way gradually upward and soon stood within the open light of day.
“Well, my imagination didn’t play me tricks this shot,” said Wyvern, as they stood looking at the bones of the slaughtered sheep, picked clean by aasvogels and jackals.
“No. There were two of them at this job. I can see that plainly enough,” said Le Sage, scrutinising the ground. “Well, we’ve had our ride for nothing. The first essential towards holding an inquiry on a dead nigger is for there to be a dead nigger to hold it on, and there isn’t one here.”
“Well, I own it bangs me,” said Wyvern, puzzled.
“So it does me,” said Le Sage, significantly.