"Not much to tell," replied Dick. "I got one pig all right, then I
thought I'd done enough in that line for the time being, so I started
to explore a bit. I was standing on the cliff up there when I heard a
terrific lot of grunting, and a big brute with a large pair of tusks
came charging this way. That spoilt the contract. Although I promised
not to shoot more than one pig I wasn't going to be charged by a
pocket edition of a rhinoceros."
"It was a boar, perhaps," suggested Jack.
"Might have been; it bore me over the top of the cliff, anyhow,"
rejoined Dick, laughing at his own joke--a laugh that ended in a wry
face as a twitch of pain shot through the ankle. "I let rip at the
brute at ten paces, but I must have missed it. The next thing I
remember was being bowled over, rolling and bumping until I came to a
stop about here. Seen anything of my rifle, Bob?"
"I'll look for it," said Villiers, again switching on the lamp.
It was but a few paces to the foot of the lowermost cliff terrace.
Within a yard of the base, and lying in a slight depression of soft
ground, was the porker that was responsible for young Beverley's
present condition. It was stone dead. The .303 bullet had entered its
head just below the base of the skull and had emerged out of the
animal's hind-quarters.
Close by was the rifle, apparently undamaged by its fall except that
the muzzle was choked with earth.
Villiers returned and reported what he had found.
"We ought to be making tracks," he observed. "The moon's up, although
she's still behind the palm trees. Harborough and the rest of the
crush ought to be on the war-path by this time. I'll try the signal
for recall, but I don't think it'll be of much use."
He flashed the Aldis obliquely skywards, and Morsed a message to the
effect that everything was O.K.
"Now for home!" he added. "Good four miles round by the shore, isn't
it?"
"Better than risking a short cut inland," said Bobby. "We'll leave
the lamp here and fetch it later on. I'll carry Dick on my back."
Lifting the patient on his brother's back was no easy task. It was
decidedly painful as far as Dick was concerned, but the lad kept a
stiff upper lip.
Fortunately the hard sand afforded good going, but at the end of
twenty minutes Bobby was unfeignedly glad to transfer his burden to
Jack's broad shoulders.
Upon rounding the north-eastern extremity of the island their path
was flooded with brilliant moonlight, for hitherto they had been in
the deep shadows cast by the beetling cliffs. On their right lay the
dense palm groves, the broad leaves waving in the light breeze; on
their left the placid waters of the lagoon, backed by the undulating
line of creamy foam that marked the ceaseless battle between the sea
and the coral reef.
Bobby halted and raised one hand.
"Hark!" he exclaimed.
Above the dull roar of the surf and the gentle hush of the foliage
could be distinguished men's voices. Harborough and his party were
still searching.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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