Her machinery was ponderous enough to shatter the morale of a finer man than Dick. It was like shooting rabbits with a field-gun. Dick was that not uncommon flower of our civilisation—a thoroughly charming fellow. Just the man for a dance at your house, a rubber at your club, a week-end at your partridges. Good-looking, well-dressed, well-mannered, it was impossible not to like him at sight.
Alas! the forest cares nothing for looks, clothes, or manners.
The mild fires of public-school and life about town had not tempered his metal hard enough. He had had an easy war, largely spent at Bolo House. In his spells at the front, he had the support of discipline, example, comradeship; responsibility had been lifted from his shoulders. Now he had to fight a duel with Africa for an opponent.... And hate, that the war taught us so quickly kills all sense of sportsmanship, blindfolded him.
As he thought of his dependence on the man he had wronged, his heart contracted. He was so ignominiously at the mercy of one on whom he had hitherto bestowed a smile of pity.
And why? Not because his enemy was braver, or cleverer, or a better man in any way, but just because he had a loaded rifle. From whatever angle he regarded this intolerable triangle, the gun dominated. Looked at as a means of securing food, in Archie's prejudiced hands, it dictated terms. As a weapon of offence, it imposed no less. So long as Archie held this card, Dick and Norah were impotent, immobilised, compelled ignobly to confess their liaison and accept starvation or such humiliating terms as their master saw fit to stipulate.
Archie was the common enemy whose advantage must be torn from him without consideration of his ultimate fate.
The tent in which Dick and his intended victim were sleeping was small, some eight feet by six, a one man load. He could not help contrasting his own luxurious installation with double fly, bathroom and verandah. Here was barely room for the two men to sleep. On the ground between them lay the gun, but close to Archie's hand. The firelight showing through the canvas gave a dull gleam off the barrels. It was not a magazine rifle, and the two rounds in the chambers would not go far. Archie's ammunition bag, which lay behind his head, must be secured.
His deep breathing proclaimed sleep. God send the natives by the fire slept as sound.
Moving an inch at a time to minimise the creaking of the camp bed, Dick reached out and out till his muscles were ready to snap. At last he secured the strap and lifted the bag gently to him. The rifle fell an easier prey.
With heart throbbing in the silence he lay still, waiting for the flames to die down and mask his sortie. It seemed hours before the firelight faded. He must act before a native woke to heap on fresh fuel. With infinite pains not to break the silence, he rose from his bed. His heart stood still at a leopard's bark. There was no break in Archie's breathing. Picking his way through the stray leaves that strewed the ground, he tiptoed to the door.