Part 13 (2/2)
”It's getting wicked,” said Armitage. ”It was just such a shot as this that killed old Simmonds. That was up in Kaffraria, where the storms are about as bad as anywhere. He and I were standing in the doorway watching the fun; I went in to light my pipe, and while I was fumbling about for the matches something knocked me clean over, and I heard a bang and a crash enough to wake the dead. At first I thought I had upset the crockery shelf on top of me; but no, there it stood; then my head felt queer, and there was a smell of burning about the place. Then I remembered, and got up and went to the door. There lay poor Simmonds, half in and half out, as dead as a log. The lightning had caught him bang on the head, burnt his coat and waistcoat to rags, and mauled him about horribly. I can tell you it wasn't a nice thing for a fellow to see, having just narrowly escaped the same luck himself--Ah!”
Again a sheet of flame darts down, and a roar and a crash as of the discharge of a dozen eighty-one-ton guns follows upon it. This time they beat a retreat indoors; and when they had a little recovered from the momentary shock, Armitage goes on.
”Well, as I was saying, poor Simmonds was so knocked about, that his early sepulture became a matter of necessity; besides, the first thing to do was to get him into the house. He was enormously heavy, and I couldn't get a Kafir on the place to give me a hand. Not for the cattle upon a thousand hills will they so much as touch anything that has been killed by lightning with the end of their little fingers, and the nearest neighbour was twenty miles off. However, I managed to lug the poor fellow in, and the next day we buried him.”
”That's a cheerful old yarn of yours, Jack, and well calculated to rea.s.sure Miss Brathwaite,” struck in Claverton.
”I believe he's only trying to frighten us,” said Ethel.
”'Pon my word of honour, every word of what I told you's true,”
protested Armitage; and with that love for the horrific implanted in the human breast, one story led to another, and the storm raved and flashed without, and a few preliminary hailstones rattled at intervals upon the roof.
VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TEN.
CAVEANT!
”Well, you'll have a fine day for your ride. Hicks, leave a buck or two up at Jim's in case I should be coming over. I suppose you'll all be back the day after to-morrow. Good-bye.”
The speaker was Mr Brathwaite; the spoken to, an equestrian group of four, consisting of Claverton, Hicks, and the two girls, who were starting on a long-promised visit to Jim Brathwaite's place, where a bushbuck hunt was to be organised on the following day. It was the morning after the narrow escape of the luckless Allen from a watery demise--he and Armitage had returned home to fetch their guns, and were to rejoin the others at the farm of a certain Dutchman who abode half-way. The Naylors had gone on ahead in their trap, and the four equestrians were the last to start. And such a morning! The rain had cleared away, and the great deep vault overhead was unflecked by a single feathery cloud. The sun shot his golden darts from his amber wheel, and the outlines of the mountains slept in soft-toned relief beneath the liquid blue. A perfect day, with exhilaration in every breath of the fresh, healthy atmosphere, now cooled by the thunderstorm and rain of the previous evening. And the glorious freshness and radiant sunlight communicated itself to the spirits of the riders, as they cantered gaily along, chatting and laughing in thorough enjoyment of the unclouded present.
”Now, Mr Claverton,” cried Ethel, as their horses bounded along over a smooth level stretch, ”we'll have our race--I'm to have a hundred yards start, you know. Shall we begin?”
”On no account. I received strict injunctions from your aunt not to let you do anything rash, and I intend exerting my authority to the uttermost.”
”Do you? Well now, why don't you say you're afraid of being beaten?
You are, you know. I'll tell you what. _You_ shall have the hundred yards start. We shall easily walk in before that lazy old 'Sticks,'
shan't we, Springbok, my beauty?” she said, banteringly, patting the neck of her steed, a light, elastic-stepping animal with blood and mettle in him, who arched his neck and shook his mane in response to the caress. She sat him to perfection, the little hand bearing ever so lightly on the reins; and in a habit fitting her like a glove, and a coquettish straw hat surrounded by a sweeping ostrich plume, beneath which the blue eyes danced and sparkled in sheer light-heartedness, she made as pretty a picture as ever one could wish to look upon. At any rate, so thought her companion.
”Well, Sticks is lazy--at times--I grant you; but there's method in his laziness. Don't abuse Sticks.”
”Never mind, I know you're afraid. Don't think any more about it. Now I suppose you're dying to. You men always want to do a thing directly you're told not to.”
What will be the upshot, by-the-bye, of this standing arrangement of quartette? This is not the first ride by any means that those four have taken together. Together! It has been shown that one of the party, at any rate, had reached the ”two's company, three's a crowd” stage--or for the present purpose four. Thus it followed that however often the group may have started together, it was bound to split up before going very far. Frequently Hicks would manage to drop behind with one, and that one was not Ethel. Frequently, also, Ethel would, manoeuvre to rush ahead in a swinging gallop, in which case she could not be suffered to ride alone, but whoever undertook to superintend her on these occasions, certainly it was not Hicks. Whether she was wont to execute these manoeuvres at Laura's previous instigation, or whether her motives were less disinterested, deponent sayeth not. As for Claverton, he accepted the situation with, characteristic indifference. Yet what could be more fraught with elements of possible combustion? As for the man, he was perfectly unsusceptible, and wholly devoid of vanity. He looked upon his beautiful companion as a spoilt, pretty child, fond of teasing and chaff, and who amused him, and if he thought anything about himself in the matter, he supposed that he managed to amuse her. This is how he looked at it--but how did Ethel herself?
”Hallo! There goes a buck!” cried Claverton, suddenly. ”May as well have a shot,” and he made a movement to dismount.
”No, don't--please don't! Springbok won't stand fire, you know, and he'll bolt with me.”
”Oh, all right. Then that lazy old Sticks has his good points after all?”
”Yes; a steady old arm-chair has its good points too. You can shoot from it,” she replied, scornfully.
”What a wooden comparison! Why not say a clothes-horse?”
Bang! The report of a gun behind them. ”Hicks to the fore,” remarked Claverton, shading his eyes to watch the effect of the shot. But the buck held on its way, caring not a straw for the bullet which buried itself in the earth with a vicious thud some ten or a dozen yards behind.
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