Echo supplied no answer.
CHAPTER II
AT THE TENT CLUB
Aylmer tightened the reins, touched the rowels against the mare's flank, and lifted her out of her easy amble into something like a canter. He called to his companion and pointed up the slope at a gleam of white set in the dun green of the cork woods.
"The camp!" he said, and gave a little sigh of relief. Through the fifteen miles which separate Tangier from Awara the two had halted no longer than sufficed to tighten a girth or light a cigarette. The horses were white with lather, the men stained with dust.
Commandant Rattier looked, nodded, and smiled. For a sailor, people were apt to consider him taciturn—at first; but they soon discovered that his was a taciturnity which spoke. His brown eyes could gleam with many lights which were whimsically expressive. A little sidelong jerk of his neatly trimmed beard told more than many elaborated sentences. Reputations had tottered and scandals had been abashed before a single gesture of his neatly gloved hands. For the moment his nod suggested content, anticipation, and unruffled good humor.
A minute later surprise overcame his reticence. Half a dozen dull, half-muffled explosions throbbed in the distant jungle of broom and wild olive. The commandant's eyebrows rose in arcs of amazement.
"Do they then shoot the boar as well as impale it?" he asked.
Aylmer smiled.