Chapter 9 | A Queer Predicament | Diamond Dyke

“Bravo! splendid!” panted Emson, as he and his brother met by the side of the dead eland, upon whose flank Duke had mounted, and stood with his red tongue out, too much run down to bark. “Why, Dyke, lad, how did you manage it? Right through the shoulder. You couldn’t have done better at a stationary target.”

“All chance,” said the boy, panting as heavily as the dog; and lowering himself off his nag, he loosened the girths, and then sank at full length upon the sand.

“Tired?”

“Thirsty,” replied the boy.

“That you must bear, then, till I come back.”

“Where are you going?”

“To fetch Jack and a span of bullocks. I won’t be longer than I can help. Keep Duke with you, but don’t leave the game. One moment: make a fire, and cook yourself a steak.”

“Stop and have some, Joe.”

“No time,” said Emson, and he strode away, leaving his brother alone with the great antelope and his two dumb companions.

“Well, I didn’t reckon upon this,” said Dyke, as he lay upon his side watching his brother’s figure grow slowly more distant, for he was walking beside his horse, which hung its head, and kept giving its tail an uneasy twitch. “Not very cheerful to wait here hours upon hours; and how does he know that I’ve got any matches? Fortunately I have.”

There was a pause during which his cob gave itself a shake which threatened to send the saddle underneath it, an act which brought Dyke to his feet for the purposes of readjustment.

This done, and feeling not quite so breathless from exertion and excitement, he walked round the great antelope.

“Well, it was all chance,” he said to himself. “The first shot was an awful miss. Good job for us there was so much to shoot at. I could hardly miss hitting that time. What a bit of luck, though. A big bit of luck, for we wanted the fresh meat very badly.”

After scanning the goodly proportions of the animal for some time, it struck the boy that he had not reloaded his rifled gun, and this he proceeded to do, opening the breech, taking out the empty brass cartridges, carefully saving them for refilling, and then putting his hand to the canvas pouch in which the cartridges were packed.

His hand stopped there, and, hot as he was, he felt a shiver pass through him.

There was not a single cartridge left.

Dyke stood there, half-stunned.

Had he forgotten them? No, he had felt them since he started; but where they were now, who could say? All he could think was that they must have been jerked out during the violent exertion of the ride.

How his heart leaped. They were in the leather pouch, which he had slung from his shoulder by a strap, and the excitement had made him forget this. “What a good—”

That pouch was gone. The buckle of the strap had come unfastened, and it was lost, and there was he out in the middle of that plain, with the carcass of the antelope to act as a bait to attract lions or other fierce brutes, and he was without any means of defence but his knife and his faithful dog.

The knife was sharp, so were Duke’s teeth, but—

Dyke turned cold at the thought of his position, and involuntarily began to sweep the plain for signs of danger, knowing, as he did full well, that beasts of prey always hang about the herds of wild creatures in their migrations from feeding ground to feeding ground; the lions to treat the strong as their larder when on their way to water; the hyaenas and jackals to pick up the infirm and tender young. Then the boy’s eyes were directed to the distant figure of his brother, and his first thought was to shout to him and ask for ammunition.

But no cry, however piercing, could have reached Emson then, as Dyke well knew, and acting upon sudden impulse, he ran to his horse to tighten the girths of his saddle to gallop off after him.

“And if I do,” he said to himself, “the minute I am gone, the sneaking jackals and vultures will appear as if by magic, and begin spoiling the beautiful meat; Joe will laugh at me first for being a coward, and then turn angry because I have left the eland for the animals to maul.”

Dyke stood with his forehead puckered up, terribly perplexed. He did not mind the anger, but the thought of Emson thinking that he was too cowardly to stop alone out there in the plain and keep watch for a few hours was too much for him, and he rapidly loosened the girths again.

Then came the thought of a family of lions, which had perhaps been unsuccessful, scenting out the eland, and coming up to find him in that unprotected state.

It was horrible, and, with a shiver, he tightened up the girths, sprang upon the cob, pressed its sides, and went off after Emson at a gallop, followed by Duke, who barked joyously, as if applauding his master’s decision.

Dyke felt lighter hearted and as if every stride took him out of danger, and he gave a glance round, saw dots here and there in the sky which he knew were vultures hurrying up to the banquet, and drawing his left rein, he made Breezy swing round, and rode in a semicircle back to the eland with teeth set, a frown on his brow, and determination strong: for he had mastered the feeling of panic that had assailed him, and though he did not grasp the fact himself, he had made a grand stride in those few minutes toward manhood.

“Let ’em come,” he said bitterly; “I won’t run away like that. Why, I could only have done this if a lion as big as that one we shot were already here.”

In another five minutes, with the dots in different parts around growing plainer, Dyke was back by the eland, and hobbling his horse’s forefeet, he loosened the girths again with almost angry energy; then unstrapping the bit, left the cob to crop such green shoots as it could find.

As the boy performed these acts, he could not help stealing a glance here and there; and then standing on the eland, so as to raise himself a little, he shaded his eyes and carefully swept the plain.

He could see distant patches, which he made out to be herds, gradually growing fainter, and several more dots in the sky, but no sign of danger in the shape of lions; but he derived very little comfort from that, for he knew well enough that the tawny-hided creatures would approach in their crawling, cat-like fashion, and a dozen might be even then hidden behind the bushes, or flattened down in the sand, or dry, shrubby growth, with which their coats so assimilated as to make them invisible to the most practised eye.

Dyke’s teeth were pressed so hard together that they emitted a peculiar grinding sound with the exertion as he leaped down, and the dog looked up in a puzzled way, and uttered an uneasy bark.

Dyke started. The dog must scent danger, he thought, and the next glance was at Breezy, whose instinct would endorse the dog’s knowledge; but the cob was blowing the insects off the tender shoots at every breath, and browsing contentedly enough.

It was fancy. The great, foul birds were coming nearer, but Dyke knew that he could keep a thousand of them away by flourishing his empty gun.

Then a sudden thought occurred to him, and he turned excitedly to the dog, taking off his canvas pouch the while, and shaking it.

“Hi, Duke! Hey there, good old boy! Lost—lost! Seek them! Good dog, then! Seek—seek! Lost!”

The dog barked excitedly, sniffed at the pouch, looked up at his master, whined and barked, sniffed again at the pouch, and finally, in answer to Dyke’s shouts and gestures, took another sharp sniff at the canvas, and bounded away, head down, and following the track made by the eland, the horses, and his own feet.

“What an idiot I was not to think of that before!” said the boy to himself. “He’ll find it, as sure as sure.”

Then he gave another glance round, to stand repentant as he followed the figure of the retiring dog, and felt ready to call it back, for he was increasing the terrible loneliness by sending away his dumb friend, one who would have instantly given him warning of the approach of danger.

Once more Dyke went through a mental battle. He was mastering the strong desire to call back the dog, and forcing himself to take out his knife and use it as a bill-hook to cut a quantity of the dry, short bush, piling it up until he had enough to make a fire. This he started, and felt better, for the flame and smoke would keep off animals, show where he was, and cook his dinner, about which he had begun to think eagerly, as well as of his position.

“I wonder whether other fellows of my age are so ready to take fright at everything. It’s so stupid, just because the place is open and lonely. Fancy wanting to keep Duke back when he is pretty well sure to find my cartridge pouch, and bring it here. It’s a good job no one knows what we feel sometimes. If any one did, how stupid we should look.”

The fire burned briskly, with the white smoke rising steadily up in the still air, as, after trying whether the edge of his sheath-knife had been blunted by cutting the bush wood, he attacked the great antelope to secure a good steak to broil.

“Plenty to cut at,” he said with a laugh; and his mouth watered now at the thought of the juicy frizzle he could make on the glowing embers, which would soon be ready for his purpose. But he went to work judiciously. His experience in the lonely, wild country had taught him a little of the hunter’s craft, and he knew the value of the magnificent skin which covered the eland; so making certain cuts, he drew back the hide till a sufficiency of the haunch was bared, and after cutting a pair of skewer-like pieces from a bush, he carved a good juicy steak, inserted his skewers, spread out the meat, and stuck the sharper ends of the pieces of wood in the sand, so that the steak was close to, and well exposed to the glow. Then leaving it to roast, Dyke carefully drew the skin back into its place and set to work washing his hands.

Only a dry wash in the soft reddish sand, but wonderfully cleansing when repeated two or three times, and very delightful as a make-shift, where there is no water.

By the time Dyke’s hands were presentable, and he had piled-up some more bush where the fire had burned into a hole, the meat began to sputter, and drops of fat to drip in the hot embers, producing odours so attractive to a hungry lad, to whom fresh meat was a luxury, that Dyke’s thoughts were completely diverted from the loneliness of his position, and he thought of nothing but the coming dinner as he took from his pocket a lump of heavy mealie cake which had been brought by way of lunch.

“Wish I’d brought a bit of salt,” he said to himself and a few minutes later, as he saw the full pound and a half steak beginning to curl up and shrink on one side, another thought struck him. Wasn’t it a pity that he had not cut a bigger slice, for this one shrank seriously in the cooking?

But concluding that it would do for the present, he carefully withdrew the sticks from the sand, and turning them about, replaced them so as to cook the other side, congratulating himself the while upon the fact that the meat tightly embraced the pieces of wood, and there was no fear of the broil falling into the sand.

“Don’t want that kind of salt peppered over it,” he said in a mixed metaphorical way, and after a look at Breezy, who was browsing away contentedly, Dyke smiled happily enough. Then inhaling the delicious odours of the steak, he knelt there, with the fire glancing upon his face and the sun upon his back, picking up and dropping into places where they were needed to keep up the heat, half-burnt pieces of the short, crisp wood.

It was so pleasant and suggestive an occupation that Dyke forgot all about danger from wild beasts, or trampling from a startled herd coming back his way. For one moment he thought of Duke, and how long he would be before he came back with the cartridge pouch. He thought of Emson, too, in regard to the steak, wishing he was there to share it, and determining to have the fire glowing and another cut ready to cook.

Then, springing up, he ran to where Breezy raised his head with a pleasant whinny of welcome, took the water-bottle he always carried from where it was strapped to the back of the saddle, and returned to the cooking.

“Done to a turn,” he cried, as he caught up the two pieces of wood which held the steak, bore his dinner away a few yards from the fire, sat down holding the skewers ready, and then placing his cake bread in his lap, he began to cut off pieces of the meat.

“De—licious!” he sighed, “but a trifle hot,” and then everything was resolved into the question of meat—rich, tender, juicy meat—glorious to one whose fare had been dry, leathery, rather tainted biltong for a long while past.

Dyke ate as he had never eaten before, till the last fragment was reached—a peculiarly crisp, brown, tempting-looking piece adhering to one of the skewers. This he held back for a few moments in company with the last piece of mealie cake, wishing the while that he had cooked more, and brought a larger piece of the cake.

“Roast beef’s nothing to it,” he said softly. “Wish old Joe had been here to have a bit while it’s so tender, and poor old Duke, too. Never mind, he shall have double allowance when he does come—triple if he brings my pouch. I wonder whether he has found it. It’s wonderful what he can do in that way.”

He raised his eyes to gaze in the direction taken by the dog as he sat there near the fire, and the huge carcass of the eland behind him, and then he seemed to have been suddenly turned into stone—sitting with the bit of cake in one hand, the skewer in the other, staring, with white rings round his eyes, straight at a full-grown, handsomely maned lion, standing about twenty yards away, gazing at him straight in the face.