"I say, Joe, you are right," said Dyke now, with animation. "'Tisn't
half so hot riding."
"Of course not. One begins to get moist, and the sun and air bring a
feeling of coolness. It's only the making a start. Now then, shall I
try to cut him off?"
"No, no!" cried Dyke excitedly; "I'll do it. I'll make the brute run.
You follow up."
"Right!" said Emson; "that is, unless he tracks my way."
"Oh, he won't do that," said Dyke, with a merry laugh, and in his
animation the boy seemed to be quite transformed.
It was a good long ride to where the ostrich they sought to bring back
to its pen could be seen stalking about, looking about as big as a
guinea-fowl, but gradually growing taller and taller to its pursuers as
they rode on. After a time it ceased picking about and ran first in one
direction and then in another, as if undecided which line of country to
take before leading its pursuers a wild race out and across the veldt.
By this time it looked fully four feet high; soon after it was fully
five, as it stood up with its neck stretched out, and its weak,
large-eyed, flat head turned to them with a malicious expression.
The trio now separated, the horsemen riding more and more apart as they
advanced, till they were each a couple of hundred yards from the Kaffir,
who suddenly uttered a warning cry, to indicate that the great bird was
beginning to run off straight away.
"All right, Jack, I see," cried Dyke; and pressing his cob's sides he
went off at a gallop, not, however, in pursuit of the bird, which ran
right forward, with its head turned to watch its pursuers all the time.
Dyke's tactics, the result of experience, were of quite another kind.
He turned his cob's head, and went off like the wind at right angles to
the course the ostrich was taking, and the effect was instantaneous.
There was all the open veldt, or plain, spreading out for hundreds of
miles before the bird, and it had only to dart off and leave the
swiftest horse far behind. But its would-be cunning nature suggested to
it that its enemy had laid a deep scheme to cut it off, and instead of
going straight away, it turned on the instant to spin along in the same
direction as that taken by the boy, and get right across him.
"Ah, you silly, muddled-brained, flat-headed idiot!" yelled Dyke, as he
raced along over the plain, his steed sending the red sand flying at
every spurn of its hoofs as it stretched itself out. "I'll be there
first, and cut him off. You can't do it--you can't do it. Ah-h-h-h!"
This last shout, ending in a rattle of the tongue, seemed to stimulate
the little cob to make fresh efforts; and laughing merrily to himself in
the exhilaration of the race, Dyke had only to keep slightly drawing his
left rein, to make the ostrich curve more and more round towards him,
till he had actually deluded the bird into taking the exact direction he
wished--namely, right for the pens from which it had escaped.
On sped the cob, running over the sand like a greyhound, and on rushed
the ostrich, its long legs going with a half-invisible twinkling effect
like that produced by the spokes of a rapidly revolving wheel; its wings
were half-extended, its plumage ruffled, and its long neck stretched
out, with its flattened head slightly turned in the direction of the
rider.
And so they rode on and on, till the low range of buildings in front
became nearer, the yellow sunflower disks grew bigger, and the sun
glared from the white house. Still the bird saw nothing of this, but
continued to run in its curve, trying to pass its pursuer, till all at
once it woke to the fact that there was a long range of wire fence
before it, over which were bobbing about the heads of Joe Emson's flock
of its fellows, and there it was with the fence in front, and the two
horsemen and Kaffir behind.
Then there was a change of tactics.
Dyke, who was hundreds of yards in front of his companions, knew what
was coming, and gave his short-handled rhinoceros-hide whip a whish
through the air, and then cracked it loudly, while a chorus of
discordant cries arose from the pens.
"Give up, you ugly old rascal, or I'll twist this round your long neck,"
cried Dyke; and a great chorus arose from the pens, as if the tame birds
within the wire fence were imploring the great truant to be good, and
come home.
But nothing was further from the great bird's thoughts. It could easily
now have darted away, but it felt that it was driven to bay, and began
to show fight in the most vicious fashion, snapping its flat beak,
hissing, snorting, rattling its plumage, and undulating its long neck,
as it danced about, till it looked like a boa constrictor which had
partially developed into a bird.
Then it dashed at its pursuer, snapping at him in its rushes. But the
bill was not the thing to mind; a few lashes with the whip were enough
to ward off its attack. The danger to be avoided came from those
tremendous legs, which could deliver kicks hard enough to break a man's
bones.
Three times over did the great bird strike at Dyke, as it was driven
down to the pen with lash after lash of the whip, which wrapped round
the neck, as the head rose fully eight feet above the ground. Then came
another stroke which took effect, not upon Dyke's leg, but upon the
horse's flank, just behind the stirrup, in spite of the clever little
animal's bounds to avoid the kicks.
What followed was instantaneous. The horse whirled round, snorting with
pain, and struck out at his enemy, sending out its heels with such
violence and effect, that they came in contact with one of the ostrich's
shanks, and the next moment the giant bird came to the ground, a heap of
feathers, from which the long neck kept darting, and one leg delivering
heavy blows.