“Ostrich!” cried Dyke.
“Yes, I saw her rise and start off! My word! how she is going. I can see the spot where she got up, and must keep my eyes on it. There’s a nest there, for a pound. That means luck this morning. Come along steady. Lucky I brought the net. Why, Dyke, old chap, the tide’s going to turn, and we shall do it yet.”
“But the goblin’s dead.”
“Good job, too. There’s as good ostriches in the desert as ever came out, though they are fowl instead of fish. It’s my belief we shall snatch out of that nest a better game-cock bird than ever the goblin was, and without his temper. Come along.”
Dyke felt glad of the incident occurring when it did, for his mind was in a peculiar state just then. His feelings were mingled. He felt relieved and satisfied by having shifted something off his mind, but at the same time there would come a sense of false shame, and a fancy that he had behaved childishly, when it was as brave and manly a speech—that confession—as ever came from his lips.
All the same, on they rode. And now the sky looked brighter; there seemed to be an elasticity in the air. Breezy had never carried Dyke so well before, and a sensation came over him, making him feel that he must shout and sing and slacken his rein, and gallop as hard as the cob could go.
“Yohoy there! steady, lad,” cried Emson; “not so fast, or I shall lose the spot. It’s hard work, little un, keeping your eye on anything, with the horse pitching you up and down.”
Hard work, indeed, for there was no tree, bush, or hillock out in the direction they were taking, and by which the young Englishman could mark down the spot where he imagined the nest to be.
So Dyke slackened speed, and with his heart throbbing in a pleasantly exhilarated fashion, he rode steadily on beside his brother, feeling as if the big fellow were the boy once more whom as a child he used to tease and be chased playfully in return. Emson’s way of speaking, too, enhanced the feeling.
“I say, little un,” he cried, “what a game if there’s no nest after all. You won’t be disappointed, will you?”