He pointed behind us, and I beheld a superb painted zebra (Burchell’s, I think), following our track with palpitating nostrils. The car stopped, and it fled away.
There was a little pond in front of us from which rose a dome of irregular sticks crowned with a blunt-muzzled beast that sat upon its haunches.
“Is it catching?” said Pyecroft.
“Yes. I’m seeing beaver,” I replied.
“It is here!” said Kysh, with the air and gesture of Captain Nemo, and half turned.
“No—no—no! For ’Eaven’s sake—not ’ere!” Our guest gasped like a sea-bathed child, as four efficient hands swung him far out-board on to the turf. The car ran back noiselessly down the slope.
“Look! Look! It’s sorcery!” cried Hinchcliffe.
There was a report like a pistol shot as the beaver dived from the roof of his lodge, but we watched our guest. He was on his knees, praying to kangaroos. Yea, in his bowler hat he kneeled before kangaroos—gigantic, erect, silhouetted against the light—four buck-kangaroos in the heart of Sussex!
And we retrogressed over the velvet grass till our hind-wheels struck well-rolled gravel, leading us to sanity, main roads, and, half an hour later, the “Grapnel Inn” at Horsham.