As they rode along in the bosky shadiness of the deep kloof bottom, the shouts of the beaters on either side, the sudden clangour of the dogs as they struck the spoor of a recently alarmed buck, then the crack of a shot down at the farther end, it seemed to Evelyn Carden that the experience was wholly delightful and exhilarating. She could hardly have told why—but it was so. She was not so very young, and she had had some experiences of life. Perhaps she preferred not to tell herself the ‘why.’
Thornhill, on his part, was not thinking of her at all by this time, or if so it was only to wish she had elected to accompany someone else, which at first sight seems blackly ungrateful of him. Still less was he thinking of the sport, unless in a mechanical way. But Manamandhla, moving parallel with himself some forty yards distant through the thick, high bush; Manamandhla visible to himself, but both invisible to the rest of the on-driving line, how easy to have mistaken him for a buck—to have mistaken him. It would be rather the act of a Johnny Raw, but then, men of ripe judgment and lifelong experience had been known to make similar mistakes. Surely such a chance would not occur again. If only Evelyn had not volunteered to accompany him.
A fell, lurid obsession had seized upon this man’s mind, yet not so as to obscure his judgment, only to do away utterly with all sense of ruth or compunction. This calm, patient savage, who had reappeared—had risen, as it were, from the very dead, to blood-suck him—to batten upon him for the rest of his natural life—had got upon even his strong nerves. He was ageing, he told himself, and all through this. Again the Zulu’s broad back presented a magnificent mark for a charge of Treble A. There would be an end of the incubus, and ‘accidents will happen.’ But then—there was Evelyn riding immediately behind him.
“Well, Mr Thornhill. We seem to have drawn this fairly blank, too,” said her cheerful, pleasing voice, as the bush thinned out in front of them. “Let’s see what they’ve got There was a shot in front, wasn’t there?”
Elvesdon and Edala were standing, waiting for them. On the ground lay a dead bushbuck ewe.
“‘Diane chasseresse’ again,” cried the former, gaily. “Neat shot too. Going like the wind.”
“Well, you made me do it, you know,” protested Edala. “I said I didn’t want to shoot any more just yet.”
“Of course,” laughed Elvesdon. “It was the first opportunity I’ve had of witnessing your prowess, and I preferred that to your witnessing my lack of it.”
As a matter of fact the speaker was a first-rate shot, but there were days when he was ‘off’—and this was one of them, he said.
“Well, it’s better than nothing,” pronounced Thornhill. “Still, we ought to have got more out of there. We’ll take the next kloof down, then sweep round for home.”