“Well done, little girl, well done!” cried Ben Halse enthusiastically. “I never saw a cleaner shot. He’s got it bang through the heart, by the way he fell.”
“That’s where I aimed, dear,” she answered, flushed with the feeling of the thorough sportsman, that life could hardly contain better moments than this.
“Inkosikazi!” ejaculated old Undhlawafa admiringly. “Mamé! A wonder!”
They went over to the fallen animal, which lay motionless and stone dead. It was even as her father had said; Verna’s bullet had drilled clean through the heart of the mighty beast – a neat and sportsmanlike shot as ever was delivered.
“That pair of horns’ll stand us in for close on a hundred pounds,” pronounced Ben Halse. “Why, they must be the world’s record! I never saw any to come up to them in all my experience.”
“So the world’s record has been accounted for by only a girl,” said Verna merrily. “But you were a darling to let me have first shot.”
“Oh, as to that I was afraid you’d miss – women are so nervy and excitable.”
“Especially this woman!”
“Well, it doesn’t much matter who fired the shot, the point is we’ve got the horns, and they’ll be worth quite what I said, if not more.”
“Father, I’m ashamed of you. That’s a nice sportsmanlike way of talking, isn’t it?”
The other Zulus had now crowded up, and were firing off many ejaculations of amazement and admiration. It is possible that some of them remembered the occasion on which the bullet hole had been drilled in the wall of Ben Halse’s store. The butchery part of it devolved upon them. But this was a form of amusement they thoroughly enjoyed, and, moreover, they would have a big meat feast. The larger kind of buck, with the exception, perhaps, of the eland, is apt to be coarse and tasteless, and except for the more delicate part of this one, such as the saddle, Ben Halse wanted none. He, however, waited to see that the head, with its invaluable pair of horns, was properly taken care of. So they went to work merrily, and in an incredibly short space of time the carcase was duly quartered, and a big fire was lighted and a big roast started, by way of a preliminary, for there was no chance of interruption. There was nothing on earth to draw a patrol of that fine corps the Natal Police into the depths of the Lumisana forest at that ungodly hour of the night, short of very strong and very definite “information received.” Ben Halse and Verna, after their hours of tramping and the tension of waiting, took their share of the roast with keen and healthy appetites.
“Oh, I love this!” said the latter, cutting into a strip of the hissing grill with a pocket-knife and a sharpened stick for a fork. “Why, it’s worth all the sitting-down meals in the world!”
“Isn’t it?” rejoined her father. “Here, Undhlawafa. Here is something to send it down with.” And he produced a large flask of “square face” gin, and poured a goodly measure into the cup. The old Zulu’s face lit up.
“Nkose! It is good, impela!” and he drained it at two gulps.
“The worst of it is,” went on Verna, “the record pair of koodoo horns can’t be ticketed with my name. Because this is a poach, you know.”
“Oh, but it can – and shall. Denham has undertaken to indemnify me in any risks I run in procuring him specimens. This’ll stand us in for a hundred pounds at least. Why, the horns are a record! And I shall stick out that he placards on them a notice, that they were shot by you – shot fair and clean, by God! as I’ve never seen anything better shot.”
“All right, dear,” answered the girl. “Then some fine day the record leaks out that we have been shooting koodoo on a Government game preserve without a permit. What then?”
“What then? Why, I’m fined – say a hundred pounds. Denham makes that good, and – makes good the other hundred for the horns. But the chances are a thousand to one against the news ever reaching the proper quarter over here, for all purposes of prosecution, I mean. You see, it doesn’t specify where the thing was shot.”
“No; there’s something in that,” said Verna. “But I’d like to figure, if only in a rich man’s private museum, as having shot the record koodoo in the world.” And she laughed merrily.
The Zulus were busy cutting up the great antelope, which task they accomplished in a surprisingly short space of time, chattering and laughing among themselves as they devoured various portions of the tid-bits raw. In process of the talk Undhlawafa contrived to say something to Ben Halse – something “dark.” That worthy nodded.
“Stay here, Verna. I shall be back directly,” he said.
She looked at him for a moment full in the moonlight. Some instinct was upon her. Once before, the same instinct had moved her to intervene in a certain transaction of his, to intervene right at the critical moment, with the result of saving him from a disastrous fate as the outcome of what that transaction would have involved. The thing had hung in the balance; but her instinct had rung true, her intervention had availed. He had been saved. Now that same instinct was upon her again. She could not for the life of her have defined its meaning, still – there it was.
“I’ll be back directly,” he went on. Then he and Undhlawafa disappeared within the black shades of the forest.
Verna, left there, set herself out to await her father’s return with that tranquil philosophy which was the result of her wild life and no particular upbringing. She watched the butchery proceedings in the clear, full moonlight, but with no interest. They were rather disgusting, but she had seen enough of that sort of detail for it to have little or no effect on her. She gazed forth upon the swampy, miasmatic open space and the sombre forest line bounding it, and gave a direction or two to the natives as to the head and horns of the trophy. Then she began to wonder when her father was coming back.
The latter and Undhlawafa had reached a spot in the forest where the trees were thin at the top, letting through a broad network of moonlight. Bending down the induna drew forth from some place of concealment a bag made of raw hide. It was heavy, and its contents clinked.
“Count these, U’ Ben,” he said, untying the reimpje that fastened it.
The trader’s eyes kindled and his pulses quickened somewhat as he picked up a handful out of the mass of golden sovereigns, letting it fall back through his fingers in a stream which flashed in the moonlight. This he did again and again – and the rich metallic clink of the falling coins was music to his ears. All this could be his for the taking – his, now and here, and in return an easy and not particularly risky service. Undhlawafa, the while, was reading his face.
“Is it not enough?” he said, in a tone that implied that more might conceivably be forthcoming in the event of a negative reply. “Yet – count the pieces.”
But Ben Halse did not do this. He continued to trickle the coins through his fingers, without replying. Why should he let go this opportunity of making a rich haul? If he did not take it somebody else would, and the result would be the same. Besides, no Zulu, or any other native for that matter, could hit a house with firearms unless he were locked up inside it, and then his bullet would probably miss it and go through the window. He was far more dangerous with his own native assegai – in fact, the possession of firearms rendered him less efficient with even that. These were the salves he applied to his conscience as he looked upon the mass of sovereigns shining in the moonlight, and played lovingly with them, and longed to possess them.
But the other side of the argument would obtrude itself. The mere possession of arms breeds the desire to use them – and this holds good especially of savages. He thought