For some seconds I have said not a word was spoken; and then only short exclamations of similar import came trembling from the lips of both. Both, as if acting under a common impulse, flung their guns to the ground. Then, rushing across the glade, they threw their arms around each other; and remained for some moments locked in a brotherly embrace.
No explanation was needed by either. Karl, after passing round the lake by the other side, had strayed by chance in the direction of the glade. On nearing it, he had heard the barking of a kakur—not dreaming that it was Caspar acting as a decoy. He had answered the signal; and finding that the kakur still kept its place, he had advanced toward the opening with the intention of stalking it. On getting nearer he had ceased to utter the call, under the belief that he should find the deer out in the open ground. Just as he arrived by its edge, Caspar was mimicking the kakur in such an admirable manner, and so energetically, that Karl could neither fail to be deceived as to the character of the animal, nor remain ignorant of its position. The darkish disc visible behind the evergreen leaves could be no other than the body of the deer; and Karl was just about cocking his rifle, to bore it with a bullet, when the click of Caspar’s double-barrel sounding ominously in his ear, fortunately conducted to a far different dénouement than that fatal finale which was so near having occurred.
Chapter Thirty One.
The signal of the Shikaree.
As if sent to cheer and distract their minds from the feeling of dread awe which still held possession of them, just then the shrill whistle of Ossaroo came pealing across the lake, reverberating in echoes from the cliff toward which he had gone. Shortly after the signal sounded again in a slightly different direction—showing that the shikaree had succeeded in bagging his game, and was returning towards the hut.
On hearing the signal, Karl and Caspar regarded each other with glances of peculiar significance.
“So, brother,” said Caspar, smiling oddly as he spoke, “you see Ossaroo with his despised bow and arrows has beaten us both. What, if either of us had beaten him?”
“Or,” replied Karl, “what if we had both beaten him? Ah! brother Caspar,” added he, shuddering as he spoke, “how near we were to making an end of each other! It’s fearful to think of it!”