The Bronze Bell | Page 9

vivid flashes of crimson and gold stabbing the purple

twilight; and then the acrid reek of smokeless drifting into Amber's face,
while from the sky, where the V-shaped flock had been, two stricken
bundles of blood-stained feathers fell slowly, fluttering....
Honking madly, the unscathed brethren of the slain wheeled abruptly
and, lashed by the easterly gale, fled out over the open sea, triangular
formation dwindling rapidly in the clouded distances.
Shot-gun poised abreast, his keen eyes marking down the fall of his
prey, Amber stood without moving, exultation battling with a vague
remorse in his bosom--as always when he killed. Quain, who had
dropped back a pace after firing but one shot and scoring an unqualified
miss at close range, now stood plucking clumsily, with half frozen
fingers, at an obstinate breech-lock. This latter resisting his every wile,
his temper presently slipped its leash; as violently as briefly he swore:
"Damn!"
"Gladly," agreed Amber, without turning. "But what?"
"This gun!"
"Your gun?"
"Of course." There were elaborations which would not lend themselves
to decorative effect upon a printed page.
"Then damn it yourself, Quain; I'm sure you can do it ever so much
more thoroughly than I. But what's the matter?"
"Rim-jammed cartridge," explained Quain between his teeth. The lock
just then yielding to his awkward manipulation, stock and barrel came
apart in his hands. "Just my beastly luck!" he added gratuitously. "It
wouldn't've been me if--! How many'd you pot, Davy?"
"Only two," said Amber, lowering his weapon, extracting the spent
shells, and reloading.
"Only _two!_" The information roused in Quain a demon of sarcasm.

Fumbling in his various pockets for a shell-extractor, he grunted his
disgust. "Here, lend us your thingumbob; I've lost mine. Thanky....
Only two! How many'd you expect to drop, on a snapshot like that?"
"Two," returned Amber so patiently that Quain requested him,
explosively, to go to the devil. "If you don't mind," he said, "I'll go after
my ducks instead. You'll follow? They're over there, on our way." And
accepting Quain's snort for an affirmative he strolled off in the
direction indicated, hugging his gun in the crook of his arm.
Fifty yards or so away he found the ducks, side by side in a little
hollow. "Fine fat birds," he adjudged them sagely, weighing each in his
hand ere dropping it into his lean game-bag. "This makes up for a lot of
cold and waiting."
Satisfaction glimmering in his grave dark eyes, he lingered in the
hollow, while the frosty air, whipping madly through the sand-hills,
stung his face till it glowed beneath the brown. But presently, like the
ghost of a forgotten kiss, something moist and chill touched gently his
cheek, and was gone. Startled, he glanced skywards, then extended an
arm, watching it curiously while the rough fabric of his sleeve was
salted generously with fine white flakes. Though to some extent
apprehended (they had been blind indeed to have ignored the menace of
the dour day just then dying) snow had figured in their calculations as
little as the scarcity of game. Amber wondered dimly if it would work a
change in their plans, prove an obstacle to their safe return across the
bay.
The flurry thickening in the air, a shade of anxiety colored his mood.
"This'll never do!" he declared, and set himself to ascend a nearby dune.
For a moment he slipped and slid vainly, the dry sand treacherous to his
feet, the brittle grasses he clutched snapping off or coming away
altogether with their roots; but in time he found himself upon the
rounded summit, and stood erect, straining the bitter air into panting
lungs as he cast about for bearings.
Behind him a meagre strip of sand held back a grim and angry sea;
before him lay an eighth of a mile of sand-locked desolation, and then

the weltering bay--a wide two miles of leaping, shouting waves,
slate-coloured but white of crests. Beyond, seen dimly as a wall
through driving sheets of snow, were the darkly wooded rises of the
mainland. In the west, to his left, the blank, impersonal eye of the
light-house, its pillar invisible, winked red, went out, and flashed up
white. Over all, beneath a low and lustreless sky as flat as a plate, violet
evening shadows were closing in like spectral skirts of the imminent
night. But, in the gloom, their little cat-boat lay occult to his searching
gaze.
Quain's voice recalling him, he turned to discover his host stumbling
through a neighbouring vale, and obeying a peremptory wave of the
elder man's hand, descended, accompanied by an avalanche in
miniature.
"Better hurry," shouted Amber, as soon as he could make himself heard
above the screaming of the gale. "Wind's freshening; it looks like mean
weather."
"Really?" Quain fell into step at