Part 7 (1/2)

”That's your sort!” cried Emson. ”We'll have a good long try, and if the ostriches don't pay, we'll hunt, as, I know, we've got plenty of room out here: we'll have an elephant farm instead, and grow ivory, and have a big warehouse for making potted elephant to send and sell at home for a breakfast appetiser. Who's going to give up, eh? Now, then, what about this canter? The horses want a breather--they're getting fidgety.

I say, feel better now, old chap, don't you?”

d.y.k.e pinched his lips together and nodded shortly.

”So do I.--Here! What's that?”

He checked his horse, and pointed far away in the distance.

”Ostrich!” cried d.y.k.e.

”Yes, I saw her rise and start off! My word! how she is going. I can see the spot where she got up, and must keep my eyes on it. There's a nest there, for a pound. That means luck this morning. Come along steady. Lucky I brought the net. Why, d.y.k.e, old chap, the tide's going to turn, and we shall do it yet.”

”But the goblin's dead.”

”Good job, too. There's as good ostriches in the desert as ever came out, though they are fowl instead of fish. It's my belief we shall s.n.a.t.c.h out of that nest a better game-c.o.c.k bird than ever the goblin was, and without his temper. Come along.”

d.y.k.e felt glad of the incident occurring when it did, for his mind was in a peculiar state just then. His feelings were mingled. He felt relieved and satisfied by having s.h.i.+fted something off his mind, but at the same time there would come a sense of false shame, and a fancy that he had behaved childishly, when it was as brave and manly a speech--that confession--as ever came from his lips.

All the same, on they rode. And now the sky looked brighter; there seemed to be an elasticity in the air. Breezy had never carried d.y.k.e so well before, and a sensation came over him, making him feel that he must shout and sing and slacken his rein, and gallop as hard as the cob could go.

”Yohoy there! steady, lad,” cried Emson; ”not so fast, or I shall lose the spot. It's hard work, little un, keeping your eye on anything, with the horse pitching you up and down.”

Hard work, indeed, for there was no tree, bush, or hillock out in the direction they were taking, and by which the young Englishman could mark down the spot where he imagined the nest to be.

So d.y.k.e slackened speed, and with his heart throbbing in a pleasantly exhilarated fas.h.i.+on, he rode steadily on beside his brother, feeling as if the big fellow were the boy once more whom as a child he used to tease and be chased playfully in return. Emson's way of speaking, too, enhanced the feeling.

”I say, little un,” he cried, ”what a game if there's no nest after all.

You won't be disappointed, will you?”

”Of course not.”

”'Member me climbing the big elm at the bottom of the home-close to get the mag's nest?”

”To be sure I do.”

”Didn't think we two would ever go bird's-nesting in Africa then, did we?”

”No; but do you think there is a nest out yonder, Joe?”

”I do,” cried Emson, ”I've seen several hen birds about the last few days; but I never could make out which way they came or went. I've been on the lookout, too, for one rising from the ground.”

”But is this a likely place for a nest?”

”Well, isn't it? I should say it's the very spot. Now, just look: here we are in an open plain, where a bird can squat down in the sand and look around for twenty miles--if she can see so far--in every direction, and see danger coming, whether it's a man, a lion, or a jackal, and shuffle off her nest, and make tracks long before whatever it is gets near enough to make out where she rose. Of course I don't know whether we shall find the nest, if there is one. It's hard enough to find a lark's or a partridge's nest at home in an open field of forty or fifty acres; so of course, big though the nest is, and the bird, it's a deal harder, out in a field hundreds of miles square, eh?”

”Of course it is.”

”'Scuse my not looking round at you when I'm speaking, old chap; but if I take my eye off the spot, I shall never find it again.”