At this instant, May came from the fireside circle. The night was so clear that he recommended attacking the porcupine in his haunt at once, and sleeping after the sport. On being told that some one was hovering about, he laid his ear to the ground, but could detect nothing. Ormsby reminded him that he had been under the impression, ever since they left the Dutchman’s valley, that some one was hovering about. Had Frankfort stated this opinion. May would have put some faith in it; but he did not like Ormsby. The latter was perpetually scolding and ridiculing the poor little bushman; and so, as the idea of the stealthy visitant originated with the young subaltern, May chose to ignore it; but he determined, nevertheless, on keeping a sharp look-out, and was as much puzzled as his masters as to who the spy could be.
They were a tolerably large party; and, knowing the character of the locality, and the tribes near it, he felt sure that the enemy, if enemy it was, mustered in no force: so they set out on the porcupine hunt.
The bushman had already tracked out his victim for the sport. The poor little creature had set the dogs at defiance on being first discovered, and kept them at bay till it managed to retreat to its hole. So there he was, poor fellow, with his ears, almost like a man’s, stretched wide open, listening for his expected besiegers; for, once disturbed, he was thoroughly uneasy, and all his quills, though lying close to his body, were ready to shoot out into a panoply for his defence when his castle should be attacked.
May tried to get a peep at him in his hole, but he could only hear him panting; so he fastened the bayonet, with which he had taken care to provide himself to the long bamboo of old Piet’s wagon whip. It was very sharp at the point; our bushman had taken care to cleanse it from the rust it had imbibed in the damp ground, in which Ormsby had occasionally planted it as a candlestick by his bedside. Armed with this weapon, and followed closely by the dogs, whom he encouraged and exhorted in the queerest jargon that can be imagined, Frankfort and Ormsby carrying sticks, he led the way along the banks of the river, and soon reached the hiding-place of the poor little beast. The dogs gave tongue at once. May, as I said, tried to get a peep at him, but he could only hear him panting.
Floss soon got pricked in the nose, and retreated—only, however, to return to the charge, and scratch and yelp in vain. Spry and Punch kept steady sentry, warily taking their opportunities of making an entrance. At last the earth gave way, and the “wee beastie” emerged from his den, with all his darts prepared for the charge. His mouth was but a mockery; he could not bite; so he turned his back again upon the foe, and as they approached, opened out the weapons that nature had given him to save himself. These Ormsby believed would be shot out like arrows; but, as May said, the schelm (rogue) was too slim (knowing) to part with his arms entirely, adding, that “English man” was “too fond of making stories, and,” with a sly smile, “too ready to believe them.”
The creature, however, made his backward charge, again and again rolled himself into a ball, with all his quills “on end,” and after gathering strength for another battle, fought his foes gallantly, till May, fearing the dogs would make a meal of him, drove his bayonet into the soft part of his body, and laid him dead upon the threshold of his home.
Ormsby was delighted with the novelty of the porcupine hunt on the edge of that winding river, its waters flashing in the moonlight, and clamouring along between the stones, or gurgling in little creeks of mossy rock. Here a bank stretched out into the stream, with a group of willows hanging their tresses over their own inverted shadows; there the grey cliffs were broadly reflected in the waters, and the frogs kept up a perpetual though most unmusical chorus from the pools in the drift. Up the stream the murmur was beginning to increase to a roar; and, in some dread of the torrent suddenly swelling, May scrambled up the bank, and shortened the way to the bivouac, where the wagons were drawn up in great precision, and where all were sound asleep save Marmion, who “bayed the moon” loudly at the approach of his master.
Ormsby, in horror of “creeping things,” had latterly taken it into his head to sleep in the wagon, instead of sharing the tent with Frankfort; and still convinced that some one was hanging about the neighbourhood, he determined to keep watch till dawn; but fatigued by his midnight sport, he was soon overcome with drowsiness, and the bright African sun was shining on his face, and May laughing quietly over him, as he woke with a start, and seizing the bushman’s hand, examined it intently, to May’s great amusement. Frankfort, too, was looking in upon him, and Marmion, with his fore paws on his master’s chest, had his great eyes fixed upon him lovingly.
“I have had the oddest dream,” said Ormsby. “I felt, as I fancied, a hand clutch mine: I grasped it tightly; and when I thought I had got it quite safe, I found the arm was gone, and only the hand, hard and cold, was left in mine.”
“And here it is, I suppose,” said Frankfort, laughing, and taking up the six-barrelled pistol, which Ormsby always placed beside him when lying down at night.