Wyvern’s disgust will hardly bear describing in words. Why had he not got in his shot while he had the chance, and while it was well-nigh impossible to miss. Now he had let his chance go by, and it was not in the least likely to recur. But, what on earth was it that had alarmed the beast?
Below, like an eye, the water-hole glared dully. Beyond it now something was standing—a something which seemed to have risen out of the very earth itself—and it took the black figure of a man. And Wyvern was conscious of the cold shuddering thrill that passed through his own system, for the hideous pock-marked countenance turned upward towards him with deathlike stare, was that of the big Kafir whom the puff-adder had bitten—had bitten again and again and who was, of course, long since dead.
How could it be otherwise? No human system could survive an hour with all that deadly venom injected into it. He could have sworn to that awful face—it had been too deeply impressed upon his recollection at the time of the ghastly incident for him to forget it. There could not be another like it in the world; and it was fully visible to him now with the moon full upon it as the phantom stood there, huge and black. No—the thing could not be mortal. It was a physical impossibility—and he felt his flesh creep as it had never yet done.
The figure was moving. It had struck a crouching attitude, and was coming straight for where he lay. Instinctively Wyvern grasped the gun—though what was the use of a weapon against a thing not of flesh and blood? For a second it paused, then with a bound like that of the savage animal it had just scared away it alighted where the bush and the open met. There was a momentary and convulsive struggle accompanied by fierce hissing, then the horrible figure sprang upright, and stood, holding aloft, firmly grasped by the neck, a large puff-adder.
In the throes of strangulation the bloated coils of the reptile whipped the air convulsively, smooth and slimy in the moonlight—but it was powerless to strike. Itself of no light weight, yet its destroyer was able to hold it at arm’s length and at the same time never relax that deadly, strangling grip—the while the expression of the repulsive and horrible countenance turned upon the agonising reptile was one of fiendish gloating. At length the furious writhings died down into a faint muscular heave, and the black fiend, relaxing none of his grip of the now dead reptile, glided into the dark shades which had covered the retreat of the leopard.
Not a sound had been uttered—beyond the first hissing of the snake—not a word said; the whole scene had been horrible and eerie beyond the power of words to describe, in its weird setting of moonlit forest, and cliff and rugged spur. What devilish scene was this which had been enacted there, all in so brief a space of time that the witness thereof could hardly believe he had not dreamt it? Though not in the least timid, Wyvern was an imaginative man, and his imaginative powers were largely stimulated and fostered by his solitary life. Now he asked himself whether the wretched savage had really returned to earth—in a word—“walked,” and there in the wild and moonlit solitude the answer seemed very like an affirmative. He recalled Lalanté’s scare when they had been searching for the remains of this very being, and how no trace of any living thing had been apparent, even to Le Sage’s practised eyes. What did it all mean? Well, it need concern him no further, for in a day or two his interest in Seven Kloofs would be a thing of the past. And having thus decided, a sudden and, under the circumstances, strange drowsiness came upon him and he slept.
The Southern Cross turned in the heavens, and the soft breaths of night played around his forehead and still Wyvern slumbered on, and in the midst of that drear but beautiful solitude he dreamed. He was back at Seven Kloofs again, and, once more, it was his very own. All anxieties were wiped away, and they were rejoicing together in the joy of possession, and in their new-found, undimmed happiness—and then, and then—the stars faded in the lightening vault as the chill dawn awoke the sleeper, heart-weary and sick with the melting of the blissful illusion. But—what was this?
A strange sound, terminating in a sort of whine. Keen and alert now, Wyvern peered forth, just as the great leopard halted beneath, finishing his cavernous yawn, and looking inquiringly upward where scent or instinct told him some enemy was lurking. But just a fraction of a moment too long did he tarry, as the bullet sped forth; the thundrous echoes of the report rolling in many-tongued reverberation among the rocks and krantzes. The great spotted cat lay gasping out its life, with a severed spine.
There are compensatory moments in life, and this was one of them. In the keen exhilaration of the successful shot, Wyvern noted that the beast was an abnormally large and fine specimen of its kind. The skin should be a parting gift to Lalanté; a final memento of Seven Kloofs.