Maiwas Revenge | Page 4

little
knot of beaters, and told him to beat the spinney.
"Very well, sir," answered the man, "but it's getting wonderful dark,
and the wind's rising a gale. It will take you all your time to hit a
woodcock if the spinney holds one."

"You show us the woodcocks, Jeffries," answered Quatermain quickly,
for he never liked being crossed in anything to do with sport, "and we
will look after shooting them."
The man turned and went rather sulkily. I heard him say to the under-
keeper, "He's pretty good, the master is, I'm not saying he isn't, but if he
kills a woodcock in this light and wind, I'm a Dutchman."
I think that Quatermain heard him too, though he said nothing. The
wind was rising every minute, and by the time the beat begun it blew
big guns. I stood at the right-hand corner of the spinney, which curved
round somewhat, and Quatermain stood at the left, about forty paces
from me. Presently an old cock pheasant came rocketing over me,
looking as though the feathers were being blown out of his tail. I
missed him clean with the first barrel, and was never more pleased with
myself in my life than when I doubled him up with the second, for the
shot was not an easy one. In the faint light I could see Quatermain
nodding his head in approval, when through the groaning of the trees I
heard the shouts of the beaters, "Cock forward, cock to the right." Then
came a whole volley of shouts, "Woodcock to the right," "Cock to the
left," "Cock over."
I looked up, and presently caught sight of one of the woodcocks
coming down the wind upon me like a flash. In that dim light I could
not follow all his movements as he zigzagged through the naked
tree-tops; indeed I could see him when his wings flitted up. Now he
was passing me--/bang/, and a flick of the wing, I had missed him;
/bang/ again. Surely he was down; no, there he went to my left.
"Cock to you," I shouted, stepping forward so as to get Quatermain
between me and the faint angry light of the dying day, for I wanted to
see if he would "wipe my eye." I knew him to be a wonderful shot, but
I thought that cock would puzzle him.
I saw him raise his gun ever so little and bend forward, and at that
moment out flashed two woodcocks into the open, the one I had missed
to his right, and the other to his left.

At the same time a fresh shout arose of, "Woodcock over," and looking
down the spinney I saw a third bird high up in the air, being blown
along like a brown and whirling leaf straight over Quatermain's head.
And then followed the prettiest little bit of shooting that I ever saw. The
bird to the right was flying low, not ten yards from the line of a
hedgerow, and Quatermain took him first because he would become
invisible the soonest of any. Indeed, nobody who had not his hawk's
eyes could have seen to shoot at all. But he saw the bird well enough to
kill it dead as a stone. Then turning sharply, he pulled on the second
bird at about forty-five yards, and over he went. By this time the third
woodcock was nearly over him, and flying very high, straight down the
wind, a hundred feet up or more, I should say. I saw him glance at it as
he opened his gun, threw out the right cartridge and slipped in another,
turning round as he did so. By this time the cock was nearly fifty yards
away from him, and travelling like a flash. Lifting his gun he fired after
it, and, wonderful as the shot was, killed it dead. A tearing gust of wind
caught the dead bird, and blew it away like a leaf torn from an oak, so
that it fell a hundred and thirty yards off or more.
"I say, Quatermain," I said to him when the beaters were up, "do you
often do this sort of thing?"
"Well," he answered, with a dry smile, "the last time I had to load three
shots as quickly as that was at rather larger game. It was at elephants. I
killed them all three as dead as I killed those woodcocks; but it very
nearly went the other way, I can tell you; I mean that they very nearly
killed me."
Just at that moment the keeper came up, "Did you happen to get one of
them there cocks, sir?" he said, with the air of a man who did not in the
least expect an answer in the affirmative.
"Well,