"Nothing much," declared Dick. "Ankle twisted. It's quite all right when I don't move; when I do it gives me what-oh!"
Bobby was busy wrapping handkerchiefs soaked in salt water round the swollen limb.
"Tell us what happened," he invited.
"Not much to tell," replied Dick. "I got one pig all right, then I thought I'd done enough in that line for the time being, so I started to explore a bit. I was standing on the cliff up there when I heard a terrific lot of grunting, and a big brute with a large pair of tusks came charging this way. That spoilt the contract. Although I promised not to shoot more than one pig I wasn't going to be charged by a pocket edition of a rhinoceros."
"It was a boar, perhaps," suggested Jack.
"Might have been; it bore me over the top of the cliff, anyhow," rejoined Dick, laughing at his own joke—a laugh that ended in a wry face as a twitch of pain shot through the ankle. "I let rip at the brute at ten paces, but I must have missed it. The next thing I remember was being bowled over, rolling and bumping until I came to a stop about here. Seen anything of my rifle, Bob?"
"I'll look for it," said Villiers, again switching on the lamp.
It was but a few paces to the foot of the lowermost cliff terrace. Within a yard of the base, and lying in a slight depression of soft ground, was the porker that was responsible for young Beverley's present condition. It was stone dead. The .303 bullet had entered its head just below the base of the skull and had emerged out of the animal's hind-quarters.
Close by was the rifle, apparently undamaged by its fall except that the muzzle was choked with earth.
Villiers returned and reported what he had found.