"I say, Cetchy, isn't this splendid?" said Haviland, drawing in long
breaths of the cool night air. He was simply revelling in the sense of
absolute liberty as he gazed around upon the dim fields, then up at the
star-gemmed sky.
"Oh, yes. Splendid, rather! Hangman's Wood long way--get morning very
early," replied the other.
The long, dark outline of the ill-omened covert loomed before them; and
at sight of it Haviland could hardly restrain a wild paroxysm of
laughter, as he remembered the last time they visited the place, and the
awful scare they had put upon the unfortunate keeper. Just as they
gained it, the moon in its last quarter arose above the tree tops.
"It's awfully dark in here, Cetchy," whispered Haviland, as they stood
within the gloomy depths of the wood. "These trees are too thick. We
can't see a blessed bird."
It was even as he had said. The light of the feeble moon hardly
penetrated here, and the chill gloom and weird associations of the place
began to take effect even upon their spirits. A fox barked in the
further end of the covert, and ever and anon the doleful hooting of
owls, both far and near, rang out upon the night, and now and again one
of the ghostly birds would drop down almost into their faces, and skim
along the ride on soft, noiseless pinions. The earthy moisture of the
soil and undergrowth was as the odour of a charnel-house. Every now and
then some sound--strange, mysterious, unaccountable--would cause them to
stop short, and, with beating hearts, stand intently listening. Then
they went on again.
They had secured no spoil; the tree tops were too thick to see the
roosting birds. At last, as luck would have it--whether for good or ill
we say not--they managed to glimpse a single pheasant through a gap
against the sky. All of a quiver with excitement, Haviland pressed the
trigger, and missed. Still the dim black ball up aloft never moved.
Again he took careful aim, and this time it did move, for it came down
from its perch with a resounding flapping of wings, and hit the earth
with a hard thud, still flapping. In a moment the Zulu boy was upon it
and had wrung its neck, but not before it had uttered a couple of
raucous croaks that seemed, to the over-strained sense of its slayers,
loud enough to be heard for miles in the midnight stillness.
"I'm glad we've got something at last, Cetchy," whispered Haviland, as
he examined the dead bird. "We'll have to be contented with it, though,
for time's up. Come along, we must get back now."
Bearing off their spoil in triumph, they had gained the centre of the
wood--the spot, in fact, where the old tragedy had occurred, and close
to that whereon they had so badly frightened the keeper. Suddenly
Haviland felt a hand on his arm, heard a brief whisper:
"Stop! Something moving."
At first he could hear nothing; then his ears detected a sound, and his
nerves thrilled. As the other had said, it was something moving, and
instinctively he realised that it was something heavier, more formidable
than any of the light-footed denizens of an English wood. Somehow his
mind reverted to the grim legend. What if it were true, and the
strangled man actually did walk, with all the marks of his horrible and
violent death upon him? In front, where the rides of the wood
intersected each other, the moonlight streamed through in a broad patch,
rendering blacker still the pitchy blackness beneath the trees beyond.
The stillness and excitement, together with the gruesome associations of
the place, had got upon their nerves even more than they knew. What if
some awful apparition--appalling, horrible beyond words--were to emerge
from yonder blackness, to stand forth in the ghostly moonlight, and
petrify them with the unimaginable terrors of a visitant from beyond the
grave? Haviland's pulses seemed to stand still as the sounds drew
nearer and nearer. A keeper's? No. They were too quick, too heavy,
too blundering, somehow. Then Anthony breathed one word:
"Dog!"
A dog! Of course, that solved the mystery. But even then the jump from
supernatural fears to the material hardly seemed to mend matters. A dog
meant a keeper, of course, unless it were a midnight poacher like
themselves, in which event it would give them a wide berth; but this was
too much to hope. On the other hand, if it were accompanying a keeper
on his midnight round, the brute would certainly attack them; and that
it was a large and heavy animal they could determine by the sound of its
quick, fierce rushes to and fro, and a sort of deep-toned grunt which it
uttered now and then as it snuffed the ground.
Breathlessly they crouched. Ha! It was coming! The sound of its
approaching rush in the pitchy blackness was almost upon them--then it
passed. It had not discovered them yet, but evidently suspected their
presence. When it winded them, as it might do any moment, then it would
come straight for them. There was something terribly unnerving in this
feeling of being hunted, and that by an enemy whose strength they had no
opportunity of estimating.
As the retreating sound grew fainter, Haviland suggested climbing a
tree. There was no such thing as playing the ghost again. That was all
very well with a keeper, but it wouldn't do for a moment with a dog.
Besides, the brute could maul them horribly even before the keeper
should arrive on the scene; but Anthony negatived the suggestion.
"No climb tree," he said. "I kill him. Look, he come again."
It was even as he had said. The rush of a heavy body through the
undergrowth, this time on the other side of the ride, and then, from the
darkness beyond, there sprang forth into the moonlit ride an enormous
bull-mastiff.
Terrible to a degree looked the formidable brute, his fangs exposed in a
white line across the blackness of his huge bullet head: and the great
muscular brindled body looked powerful enough to bring down a bullock
with ease. Why, these two would simply be torn to pieces.
As the brute sprang into the light it paused a moment. Then, uttering
one deep, cavernous "gowl" it came straight for them.
But at the moment it began its rush, there darted forth into the light a
form, lithe and dark. Something flashed aloft, and at the same time
descended--and then animal and human were mixed up together in a
struggling mass upon the ground. The descendant of a long line of
warriors knew better than to give his antagonist the choice of battle
ground, and did not prefer to fight in the dark, wherefore he had hurled
himself straight at the onrushing monster--stabbing furiously with his
improvised sheep-shear assegai.
Not ineffectually either, but the sheer weight of the heavy muscular
brute had hurled him flat.
It had all been done with a rapidity that was almost lightning-like.
Haviland, witnessing it, felt all in a maze for a moment, realising that
he was unarmed--for the air-gun of course would be about as effective
against such an adversary as this as the common or school pea-shooter.
Yet he bethought him of a weapon more useful still, and without
hesitation he advanced upon the struggling pair, and his right fist was
armed with a knuckle-duster of the most formidable kind, each knuckle
constituting a sharp point--a terrible implement, one moderately strong
blow of which could kill a man easily.
The Zulu boy lay on the sward beneath the great dog--his one object
being to shield his throat. Fortunately he had previously rolled his
jacket round his left arm, and this had received the powerful jaws,
which hung on, with a dreadful worrying snarl--while, with his right, he
was stabbing furiously at the creature's body, but somehow without much
effect. Haviland saw his chance--and the good moonlight befriended him.
With the utmost coolness and ready promptitude he selected his
opportunity--letting out with all the force of his iron-bound right
hand. "Woof!" It caught the snarling, gnashing monster full and square
on the side of the head, and without waiting to see the result he
followed it up with another. One quick gasp, and the great brute rolled
off, lying on its side, hardly moving--stunned, if not dead. But the
Zulu boy would leave nothing to chance. Springing to his feet he drove
his sharp weapon through and through the body of the dog. There was no
doubt about it then. The animal lay still--the dark pool of its blood
widening ever in the moonlight.
"Are you hurt, Cetchy? D'you hear--are you hurt?" gasped Haviland,
panting with the effort and excitement of his supreme exertion.
"Hurt? No. He bite me once. Ha! I, Mpukuza! I can kill! Ha!"
Thus spoke the savage--the descendant of a line of fighting savages,
standing there, grasping his savage weapon, surveying the dead and
bleeding body of his formidable enemy, not in his own native wilds, but
in the peaceful glade of an English game preserve.
"Well, come along then, and quick. There's sure to be a keeper not far
off."
Quickly they took their way to the edge of the wood. They were over the
fence and away, but hardly had they gone some fifty yards when a voice
behind them shouted:--
"Hi! Stop there! Stop, do 'ee 'ear? I'll shoot 'ee if 'ee don't."
And immediately the bang of a discharged gun crashed out upon the night,
Haviland laughed.
"It's all right, Cetchy. He daren't fire at us, for his life. It's
bluff. Come along."
And away they raced, but a glance over their shoulder showed them that
the keeper was giving chase.
That in itself didn't afflict them much, but by and by when they had
covered several long fields, they observed with concern that he was
still on their heels. As a rule, a keeper was easy to distance, but
this one seemed lightly built and in excellent training. Even a dark
lane down which they dived, hoping to double on him, proved of no avail;
rather did it serve to make matters worse, for the keeper, knowing where
they were bound to come out, had wasted neither time nor energy, but
made straight for that point: a manoeuvre which brought him alarmingly
close when he did emerge. And at all hazards he must not be suffered to
head them off from their objective.
"Now, then--'ee'd better stop, I tell 'ee!" he shouted, reckoning them
done up. But the fugitives knew better than to waste wind, if he did
not. They simply raced on, offering no reply. And by degrees their
superior wind and training told, the more so that the race was a long
one. They saw they were shaking their pursuer off, and it was all
important they should do this, because it would never do for them to let
him run them all the way back to the school. They might as well
surrender at once as that.
"My clothes all over blood!" said Anthony at last, when they were safe
beyond pursuit. "What I do?"
Haviland examined him critically in the moonlight.
"So they are," he said. "Well, Cetchy, you must peel them off and stow
them away in the ditch, and go in without them. You can think you're
back in Zululand again."
"So I can. Yes," answered the other, showing his white rows of splendid
teeth.
Half an hour later, two wearied perspiring figures shinned up the cord
under the angle of the chapel wall at Saint Kirwin's, and so ended
another night of excitement and adventure--as they thought.