Suddenly the man stopped. Up went the gun, then it was as quickly lowered. He had sighted the flight of the hawk above the tree tops, but the chance was not good enough. And he had sighted something else, the nest to wit. The bird was sure to come back to it, and so give him a much better chance. Accordingly he squatted down among the undergrowth, his gun held ready, barely twenty yards from the concealed pair, but with his back to them.
That sparrow-hawk, however, was no fool of a bird. She seemed possessed of a fine faculty for discrimination, and manifestly knew the difference between a brace of egg-collecting schoolboys, and a ruthless, death-dealing gamekeeper, and although at intervals she swooped overhead it was always out of range, but still the latter sat there with a patience that was admirable, save to the pair whom all unconsciously it menaced with grave consequences.
For, as time fled, these loomed nearer and nearer. As it was, they would need all their time to get back, and were they late for evening chapel, especially after being granted leave from calling-over, it was a dead certainty that the Doctor himself would have something to say in the matter, at any rate in Haviland’s case. And still that abominable keeper lurked there, showing no sign whatever of moving within the next half-hour, in which event it mattered little if he did not move at all. A thin, penetrating drizzle had begun to fall, which bade fair to wet them to the skin, but for this they cared nothing, neither apparently did their enemy, who furthermore was partly sheltered beneath a great fir. Haviland grew desperate.
“We shall have to make a run for it, Cetchy,” he breathed. “Look,” showing his watch. “If the beast doesn’t make a move in five minutes, we must run and chance it. I’ll give the word.”
The hand of the watch moved slowly on—one minute—two—three—four. Haviland replaced it in his pocket, and drew a long breath: but before he could give the word, his companion touched him and whispered.
“No run. He run. I make him.”
“What?”
“I make him run. I flighten him. I ghost. You’ll see.”
For a great idea had occurred to Mpukuza, christened Anthony, named by Saint Kirwin’s “Cetchy”—and exactly one minute and as rapid a metamorphosis in his personal appearance was all he needed to put it into execution.
Darker and darker had grown the lowering skies, and now the wind began to moan dismally through the tree trunks. Anything more drear and depressing than the brooding gloom of the haunted wood could hardly be imagined. The keeper, however, was of the dogged order of rustic, and doubtless lacking in imagination, for he remained patiently at his self-appointed post. Then, suddenly, he started to his feet and faced quickly round.