The great trees were far apart. They were near their place, after many minutes. They had caught a glimpse of a mounted man through the trees—playing his game alone—the pig, but a crash in the undergrowth. . . . There was silence, as if the hunter were listening—then a cutting squeal, a laugh from the absorbed horseman, and it was all before their eyes!
The tusker halted at the border of their little clearing. He had just seen them and the dog—more enemies. . . . Hideous bone-rack—long as a pony, tapering to the absurd piggy haunches—head as long as a pony's head, with a look of decay round the yellow tusks—dripping gash from a lance-wound under one ear—standing stock just now, at the end of all flight!
Nels seemed to slide forward two feet, like a shoved statue. It was a penetrating silence before the voice of Ian Deal:
"You two—what in God's name—"
That was all of words.
His black Arab, Kala Khan, had come to halt twice a lance-length from the tusker. Carlin and Skag and Nels stood half the circle away from the man and mount, a little farther from the still beast, the red right eye of which made the central point of the whole tableau.
Ian looked hunched. He seemed suddenly ungainly—as if all sport like this were mockery and he had merely been carried on in these lower currents for a price. His lance wobbled across his bridle-arm which was too rigid, the curb checking the perfect spring of the Arab's action.
The tusker was bone-still, with that cocked look which means anything but flight. Skag moved a step forward. His knees touched Nels; his left hand was stretched back to hold Carlin in her place. There was no word, no sound—and that was the last second of the tableau.
The tusker broke the picture. Flick of the head, a snort—and he wasn't there. He wasn't on the lance! His side-charge, with no turn which the eye could follow, carried him under the point of Ian's thrust in direct drive at the black Arab's belly.
Kala Khan was standing straight up, yet they heard his scream. The boar's head seemed on a swivel as he passed beneath. Ian Deal standing in the stirrups swung forward, one arm round his mount's neck, but badly out of the saddle. . . . The tusker turned to do it again.