Part 14 (1/2)
”True; but some are bigger than others.”
”Well, what's the big one now?” said d.y.k.e contemptuously, as if he had grown so hardened that he could face anything.
”Jack,” said Emson laconically.
”What! Jack? Yes, he'd better be,” cried d.y.k.e. ”If he gives me any of his nonsense, he'll have a rap over the head with the barrel of my gun.”
”How much of that is honest pluck, old chap, and how much bunk.u.m?” said Emson, speaking very seriously.
”I don't know,” cried d.y.k.e, colouring; ”I don't think there's any bounce in it, Joe. I meant it honestly.”
”But he is a man, and you are a boy.”
”Oh yes, he's a man, and he bullies and threatens Tanta Sal, and makes believe that he is going to spear her, and directly she rushes at him, he runs. I don't think I should be afraid of Jack.”
”Neither do I, little un,” cried Emson warmly. ”That will do. I was nervous about this. I felt that he might begin to show off as soon as you two were away from me, and if he fancied that you were afraid of him, he would be master to the end of the journey.”
”But if it came to a row, Joe, and I was horribly afraid of him, I wouldn't let him see it. Perhaps I should be, but--Oh no, I wouldn't let him know.”
”That'll do, old fellow,” said Emson, looking at his brother proudly.
”You shall go, and I'll take care of the stock and--Here! Look, look!”
This last in a tone of intense excitement, for a herd of zebra seemed suddenly to have risen out of the ground a couple of miles away, where nothing had been visible before, the beautifully striped, pony-like animals frisking and capering about, and pausing from time to time to browse on the shoots of the spa.r.s.ely spread bushes. There were hundreds of them, and the brothers sat watching them for some minutes.
”Not what I should have chosen for food,” said Emson at last; ”but they say they are good eating.”
”There's something better,” said d.y.k.e, pointing. ”I know they are good.”
”Yes, we know they are good,” said Emson softly, as he slipped out of the saddle, d.y.k.e following his example, and both sheltered themselves behind their horses.
”They haven't noticed us,” said Emson, after a pause. ”Mixed us up with the zebras, perhaps.”
”They're coming nearer. Why, there's quite a herd of them!” cried d.y.k.e excitedly.
They stood watching a little group of springbok playing about beyond the herd of zebra--light, graceful little creatures, that now came careering down toward them, playfully leaping over each other's backs, and proving again and again the appropriate nature of their name.
And now, as if quite a migration of animals was taking place across the plain, where for months the brothers had wandered rarely seeing a head, herd after herd appeared of beautiful deer-like creatures. They came into sight from the dim distance--graceful antelopes of different kinds, with straight, curved, or lyre-shaped horns; fierce-looking gnus, with theirs stumpy and hooked; ugly quaggas; and farthest off of all, but easily seen from their size, great, well-fed elands, ox-like in girth.
”I never saw anything like this, Joe,” said d.y.k.e in a whisper.
”Few people ever have in these days, old fellow,” said Emson, as he feasted his eyes. ”This must be like it used to be in the old times before so much hunting took place. It shows what an enormous tract of unexplored land there must be off to the north-west.”
”And will they stay about here now?”
”What for? To starve? Why, d.y.k.e, lad, there is nothing hardly to keep one herd. No; I daresay by this time to-morrow there will hardly be a hoof. They will all have gone off to the north or back to the west. It is quite a migration.”
”I suppose they take us for some kind of six-legged horse, or they would not come so near.”
”At present. Be ready; they may take flight at any moment, and we must not let our fresh-meat supply get out of range.”