They examined the animal. Roden’s ball had drilled clean through the centre of the heart, but the first wound would have sickened anything less tenacious of life. The bullet had struck far back in the flank, passing through the animal’s body. Leaving the after-rider to perform the necessary rites and load up the buck upon his horse, together with the first one, which was already there, they moved up to a snug corner under the rocks for lunch.
“We haven’t done badly so far,” quoth Suffield, with a sandwich in one hand and a flask in the other.
“We must get one more,” said Roden, “or rather, you must. That’ll exactly ‘tie’ the shoot; one and a half apiece.”
“Well, and have I been so dreadfully in the way, Mr Musgrave?” said Mona.
“I am not aware that I ever predicted that contingency, Miss Ridsdale.”
“Not in words, perhaps; but you looked so glum when I announced my intention of coming, that, like the pack of cards instead of the Testament in the wicked conscript’s pocket, which turned the fatal bullet, it did just as well.”
“Did I? If so, it was inadvertently. But I daresay my conscience was pricking me in advance over that baboon I was destined to murder. That might account for it.”
The fact was that, however dubious had been his reception of the said announcement, Roden was in his heart of hearts conscious that the speaker’s presence with them that day, so far from being a drawback, had constituted rather an attraction than otherwise. Indeed, he was surprised to find how much so. When Mona Ridsdale chose to lay herself out to make the most of herself, she did not do it by halves. A good horsewoman, she looked splendidly well in the saddle, the well-fitting riding habit setting off the curves and proportions of her magnificent figure to every advantage. Moreover, she was in bright spirits, and to-day had laid herself out to be thoroughly companionable, and, to do her justice, had well succeeded; and more than once, when the pace had been too great, or the ground too rough, or a dark, haunting terror of her saddle turning had smote her, she had manfully repressed any word or look which might be construed into an appeal for consideration or aid. She had even been successful beyond her hopes, for Roden, silently observant, had not suffered this to escape him, though manifesting no sign thereof. So the trio, as they sat there under the cliff, lunching upon sandwiches in true sportsmanlike fashion, with a vast panorama of mountain and plain, craggy, turret-like summit, and bold, sweeping, grassy slope, spread out beneath and around for fifty miles on either hand, and the fresh, bracing breeze of seven thousand feet above sea-level tempering the golden and glowing sunshine which enveloped them, felt on excellent terms with each other and all the world.
“The plan now,” said Suffield, when they had taken it easy long enough, “will be to separate and go right round the berg. It is lying under the krantz we shall find the bucks, if anywhere.”
“Where does my part come in in that little scheme, Charlie?” said Mona. “Who am I to inflict myself upon?”