Then his thoughts took a new vein, and he seemed to hear the comments of those among whom he had sometime moved— “Colvin Kershaw? Oh yes. Married some farm girl out in Africa and turned Boer, didn’t he?” and more to the same effect, uttered in a languid, semi-pitying tone by this or that unit of a society whose shibboleth was the mystical word “smart,” a society he had been in but not of. Well, so be it. Let them drawl out their banal inanities. In this case he hoped they would do so with reason.
Hoped? For he was not sure, far from it; and herein lay one of the “symptoms,” Not that he would have loved Aletta one iota the less had he been sure. He was not one of those to whom the joy of possession is measured by the excitement and uncertainty of pursuit; and there are some of whom this holds good, however difficult it may be to persuade, at any rate the ornamental sex, that such can possibly be the case. On the contrary, he would feel grateful to one who should spare him the throes and doubts calculated to upset even an ordinarily well-balanced mind under the circumstances, and proportionately appreciative. But whatever of diffidence or anxiety might take hold upon his own mind, Colvin Kershaw was not the man to display it in the presence of its first cause. The cringing, adoring, beseeching suitor of not so very old-fashioned fiction struck him as somewhat contemptible, and as of necessity so appearing to the object of his addresses, no matter how much she might really care for him at heart. He must run his chance to win or lose, and if he lost, take it standing. There was none of the ad misericordiam, wildly pleading element about him.
“Pas op, Baas! The bird!”
The words, emanating from his henchman, Gert Bondelzwart, brought him down to earth again; for the occupation in which he had been engaged during the above reverie was the prosaic one of attending to his daily business, which in this case consisted in going round the ostrich camps and inspecting such nests as he knew of, or discovering indications of prospective ones. To a certain extent mechanical and routine, it was not incompatible with reflection upon other matters. Now he turned to behold a huge cock ostrich bearing down upon him with hostility and aggressiveness writ large all over its truculent personality.
“Here, Gert. Give me the tack!” he said. “That old brute is properly kwaai.”
Now the cock ostrich resembles the aggressive and nagging human female, in that the respective weakness of either protects it, though differing, in that in the first instance the said weakness may be read as “value” and, in the second, proportionately the reverse. For a creature of its size and power for mischief there is no living thing more easy to kill or disable than an ostrich, wherein again comes another diametrical difference. A quick, powerful down-stroke or two with the sharp-pointed toe may badly injure a man or even kill him, if surprised in the open by the ferocious biped, tenfold more combative and formidable during the nesting season. And this one, which now came for its lawful owner, looked formidable indeed, towering up to its great height, the feathers round the base of its neck bristling at right angles, and flicking its jet-black wings viciously. It was a grand bird, whose pink shins and beak, and flaming, savage eye proclaimed it in full season, as it charged forward, hissing like an infuriated snake.
Colvin grasped the long, tough mimosa bough not a moment too soon. Standing firm yet lightly, so as to be able to spring aside if necessary, he met the onrush in the only way to meet it. The sharp pricking of the clusters of spiky thorns met the savage bird full in the head and neck, but chiefly the head, forcing it to shut its eyes. For a moment it danced in powerless and blinded pain, then backed, staggering wildly. Forward again it hurled itself, emitting an appalling hiss, again to meet that inexorable cluster of thorny spikes. In blind rage it shot out a terrible kick, which its human opponent deftly avoided, the while holding his thorn tack high enough to avoid having it struck from his hand—a precaution many a tyro in the ways of the gentle ostrich has been known to forget, to his cost. Again it charged, once more only to find itself forced to shut its eyes and stagger back giddily. Then it came to the conclusion that it had had enough.
“I think he will leave us alone, so long, Gert,” said Colvin, panting somewhat from the exertion and excitement, for even the thorn-tack means of defence requires some skill and physical effort to wield with effect against a full-grown and thoroughly savage male ostrich.
“Ja, Baas. He is real schelm,” returned Gert, who had been standing behind his master throughout the tussle. “But he has had enough.”
It seemed so. The defeated monster, baulked and cowed, sullenly withdrew, and, shambling off, promptly encountered a weaker rival in the shape of one of his own kind, which he incontinently went for, and consoled himself for his own rout by rushing his fleeing inferior all over the camp, and then, gaining the wire fence, went down on his haunches, and wobbled his silly head and fluttered his silly wings in futile challenge to another cock-bird on the further side of that obstruction, whose attention had been attracted by the row, and who was coming down to see what it was all about.