Part 6 (2/2)
”But really that's just what I meant--er--that is, I mean--it does, you know--but--” stuttered the unlucky youth, putting his foot in it deeper and deeper.
Laura had fled into another room under the pretext of finding her hat, whence a stifled sob of suppressed laughter was audible now and again.
The originator of this turn of affairs was imperturbably sticking a penknife through and through a piece of card, and contemplating the actors in it as if he were unconscious of anything humorous in the situation, though in reality he was repressing, with an effort, an overpowering desire to go outside and roar for five minutes.
”Good-bye, Mr Claverton,” said Ethel, with a mock bow, and emphasising the first word. She was rather disappointed at his ready acquiescence in her ostracism of him, as it upset a little scheme of vengeance she had been forming.
”Say rather 'Au reservoir,' for your way, I believe, lies past the dam.”
”Oh-h!” burst from the whole party at the villainy of the pun, as they left him.
”I'm afraid your friend is a dreadful firebrand; Ethel and he will fight awfully,” said Laura to Hicks as they walked down to the large enclosure. These two had fallen behind, and Hicks was in the seventh heaven of delight. The mischief of it was that the arrangement would be of such short duration. Some twenty yards in front Ethel was keeping her aunt and Jim in fits of laughter.
”Let me carry that for you,” said Hicks, pouncing upon a tiny apology for a basket which was in her hand.
”No, no; you've got quite enough to carry,” she replied, referring to a large colander containing the daily ration of maize for the ostriches, and which formed his burden on the occasion.
”Not a bit of it. Look, I can carry it easily. Do let me,” he went on in his eagerness.
”Take care, or you'll drop the other,” said she.
The warning was just one shade too late. Down came the colander, its contents promptly burying themselves in the long gra.s.s. The salvage which Hicks managed to effect was but a very small fraction of the original portion.
”There now, I've spilt all the mealies,” said he, ruefully, eyeing the scattered grain. He was not thinking of its intrinsic value, but that the necessity of going back for more would do him out of the two or three hundred yards left to him of his walk with Laura.
”Your friend would say 'it's of no use crying over spilt mealies.'
Never mind, we can go back and get some more.”
”What!” he exclaimed, delightfully. ”Do you mean to say you'll go all the way back with me? But really I can't let you take all that trouble,” he added, with reluctant compunction.
”I mean to say I'll go _all_ the way back with you, and I intend 'to take _all_ that trouble' with or with out permission,” she replied, looking up at him with a saucy gleam in her eyes.
Close to the storeroom they came upon Claverton. He was sitting on the disselboom of a tent-waggon smoking a pipe, and meditatively shying pebbles at an itinerant scarabaeus, which was wandering aimlessly about on a sun-baked open patch of ground about seven yards off.
”Well, has your sister thought better of it, and removed the ban?” asked he, as the two came up.
”No, she hasn't,” answered Laura, ”but I see you're penitent, so I will do so on her behalf. You may come down with us,” she added, demurely.
She knew he would do nothing of the sort, so could safely indulge the temptation to mischief.
Poor Hicks was on thorns. ”Yes, come along, Claverton,” he chimed in, mechanically, in the plenitude of his self-abnegation fondly imagining that his doleful tones were the acme of cordiality.
”Well, I think I will,” pretended Claverton, making a feint at moving.
Hicks' countenance fell, and Laura turned away convulsed. ”Don't know, though; think I'll join you later. I must go in and get a fresh fill; my pipe's gone out,” and he sauntered away to Hicks' great relief, as he and Laura started off to rejoin the others at the ostrich camp.
The male bird was very savage, and no sooner did he descry the party, than he came bearing down upon them from the far end of the enclosure.
”What a grand fellow!” exclaimed Ethel, putting out her hand to stroke the long serpentine neck of the huge biped, who, so far from appreciating the caress, resented it by pressing the stone wall with his hard breast-bone as though he would overthrow it, and making the splinters fly with a vicious kick or two, in his futile longing to get at and smash the whole party. And standing there in all the bravery of his jet-black array, the snowy plumes of his wings dazzling white in the sun as he waved them in wrathful challenge, he certainly merited to the full the encomium pa.s.sed upon him. Hicks emptied the contents of the colander, which brought the hen bird running down to take her share--a mild-eyed, grey, un.o.btrusive-looking creature. She stood timidly pecking on the outside of the ”spread,” every now and again running off some twenty yards as her tyrannical lord made at her, with a sonorous hiss, aiming a savage kick at her with his pointed toe.
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