two rams and five ewes.
They had been grazing; some were so yet, but others had thrown up their heads, and were listening intently.
They were barely two hundred yards distant. Quiet, cautious as had been the advance, their keen ears must have heard something. They stood motionless, gazing in the direction of the threatened peril, their ringed black horns and prominent eyes plainly distinguishable to the stalkers. One, a fine large ram, seemingly the leader of the herd, had already begun to move uneasily.
“Take the two rams as they stand,” whispered Suffield.
Crash! Then a long reverberating roar rolls back in thunder from the base of the cliff. Away go the bucks like lightning, leaving one of their number kicking upon the ground. This has fallen to Roden’s weapon; the other, the big ram, is apparently unscathed.
“I’ll swear he’s hit!” cried Suffield, in excitement and vexation. “Look at him, Musgrave. Isn’t he going groggily?”
Roden shaded his eyes to look after the leader of the herd, whose bounding form was fast receding into distance.
“Yes, he’s hit,” he said decidedly. “A fine buck too. He may run for miles with a pound of lead in him, though. They’re tough as copper-wire. We’d better sing out to Piet to bring on the horses, and try and keep him in sight anyhow.”
The fleeing bucks had now become mere specks, as, their stampede in no wise abated, they went bounding down the mountain-side more than half a mile away.
“Look there, Suffield,” went on Roden, still shading his eyes; “there are only the five ewes. Your ram’s hit, and can’t keep up, or else has split off of his own accord. Anyway, he’s hit, and will probably lie up somewhat under the krantz.”
Away they went, right along the base of the iron wall, which seemed to girdle the mountain for miles. And here Mona’s boast about being able to take care of herself was put to a very real and practical test, for the ground was rough and stony and the slope here and there dangerously steep.
Suddenly an animal sprang up, right in front of them, apparently out of the very rocks, at about a hundred yards.
“That’s him!” shouted Suffield, skimming past his companions, bent on diminishing the distance to get in a final shot. But this was not so easy, for a full-grown rhybok ram, even when wounded, is first-rate at; and this one was no exception to the rule, for he went so well and dodged so craftily behind every stone and tuft of grass that his pursuer would have to shoot him from the saddle, or not at all. Suffield, realising this, opened fire hastily, and of course missed clean.
“We’ve lost him!” he growled, making no effort to continue the pursuit.
But the quarry here suddenly altered its tactics. Possibly suspecting danger in front, it turned suddenly, and doubling, shot down the steep slope at lightning speed, and at right angles to its former course. There rang out a heavy report at some little distance behind. The buck leaped high in the air, then, turning a couple of somersaults, rolled a score of yards farther, and lay stone dead.
“By Jove, Musgrave, but you can shoot!” cried Suffield, as they met over the quarry. “Three to four hundred yards, and going like an express train. Allamaagtag! I grudge you that shot.”
“He’s yours, anyhow. First blood, you know.”
They examined the animal. Roden’s ball had drilled clean through the centre of the heart, but the first wound would have sickened anything less tenacious of life. The bullet had struck far back in the flank, passing through the animal’s body. Leaving the after-rider to perform the necessary rites and load up the buck upon his horse, together with the first one, which was already there, they moved up to a snug corner under the rocks for lunch.
“We haven’t done badly so far,” quoth Suffield, with a sandwich in one hand and a flask in the other.
“We must get one more,” said Roden, “or rather, you must. That’ll exactly ‘tie’ the shoot; one and a half apiece.”
“Well, and have I been so dreadfully in the way, Mr Musgrave?” said Mona.
“I am not aware that I ever predicted that contingency, Miss Ridsdale.”
“Not in words, perhaps; but you looked so glum when I announced my intention of coming, that, like the pack of cards instead of the Testament in the wicked conscript’s pocket, which turned the fatal bullet, it did just as well.”
“Did I? If so, it was inadvertently. But I daresay my conscience was pricking me in advance over that baboon I was destined to murder. That might account for it.”
The fact was that, however dubious had been his reception of the said announcement, Roden was in his heart of hearts conscious that the speaker’s presence with them that day, so far from being a drawback, had constituted rather an attraction than otherwise. Indeed, he was surprised to find how much so. When Mona Ridsdale chose to lay herself out to make the most of herself, she did not do it by halves. A good horsewoman, she looked splendidly well in the saddle, the well-fitting riding habit setting off the curves and proportions of her magnificent figure to every advantage. Moreover, she was in bright spirits, and to-day had laid herself out to be thoroughly companionable, and, to do her justice, had well succeeded; and more than once, when the pace had been too great, or the ground too rough, or a dark, haunting terror of her saddle turning had smote her, she had manfully repressed any word or look which might be construed into an appeal for consideration or aid. She had even been successful beyond her hopes, for Roden, silently observant, had not suffered this to escape him, though manifesting no sign thereof. So the trio, as they sat there under the cliff, lunching upon sandwiches in true sportsmanlike fashion, with a vast panorama of mountain and plain, craggy, turret-like summit, and bold, sweeping, grassy slope, spread out beneath and around for fifty miles on either hand, and the fresh, bracing breeze of seven thousand feet above sea-level tempering the golden and glowing sunshine which enveloped them, felt on excellent terms with each other and all the world.
“The plan now,” said Suffield, when they had taken it easy long enough, “will be to separate and go right round the berg. It is lying under the krantz we shall find the bucks, if anywhere.”
“Where does my part come in in that little scheme, Charlie?” said Mona. “Who am I to inflict myself upon?”
“Upon me, of course,” said Roden.
She shot a rapid glance at him as though to see if he were in earnest, and her heart beat quick. This time she was sure that no dubiousness lurked beneath his tone.
“Just as you like,” she rejoined; for her, quite subduedly. Then Piet, the after-rider, having received his instructions – viz., to start off homeward with the two bucks already slain – they separated accordingly.
Chapter Nine.
“Love that is First and Last…”
“Now you will have to take care of me,” began Mona, after some minutes of silence, as they started slowly to ride round beneath the cliff.
“A heavy responsibility for any one man during a whole hour or more.”
“You have not found it so hitherto?”
“Oh, then there were two of us. We took the risk between us. Hallo!” he broke off, “that’s a fine specimen!”
She
