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One knew them formerly when they were young; now they are old, but constant to the regular appointment which they have kept for thirty or forty years. They would not miss it for anything in the world. It was an April evening in one of the later years. Three of the old sportsmen had arrived; one was missing M. d'Arnelles. He had written to no one, given no account of himself.
The guests thought it was a curious mound; but the Maharajah recognised the reared heads of the young snakes and told his friends what the heap was. When they came closer, they could see that the long slimy bodies were all twisted together; and with an uncanny feeling, the sportsmen watched these serpents uncoil themselves from each other and glide away and disappear through the grass.
Naturally my servants and myself were overjoyed at our unexpected luck, after sufferings and privations of all kinds, in finding ourselves confronted with abundance of everything we could possibly desire. Chanden Sing and Mansing, who were sportsmen of the very first order, delighted at the prospect of getting animals, rode first one pony and then another to suit themselves.
Now and then a flock of wild ducks whirred past, making for the marshes or the innumerable lakes that vitalized the expanse, or buzzards hunched heavily along, frightened from some far resort by eager sportsmen. That was above; but beneath, on a level with the unlifted eye, were houses here and there, looking in the vastness like dolls' habitations.
It was almost magic. It was awful. Then things happened, as you might say, with some rapidity. Three shots rang out in the silence three shots in quick succession. They were fired at the wolves by the only man in the group who had an efficient rifle, but were really meant to recall the sleighs with the sportsmen and the rifles, which had gone on.
Ducks came in great numbers, and many sportsmen went in pursuit of them, along the river; but they also have disappeared. Gulls come up from seaward, and soar high overhead, flapping their broad wings in the upper sunshine.
The savage accepted fear because he had to. With the English upper class, danger is a fine art, a cult. It is an element in the family honor. One cannot possibly shrink from the test. The English have expressed themselves in sport. People who are good sportsmen are, of course, honorable fighters.
The hunters were an imposing sight, as they swept into the court, and broke ranks with a cheer that brought heads to every door. White-robed thralls ran among the champing horses, unsaddling them; scarlet-cloaked sportsmen tumbled heaps of feathered slain out of their game-bags upon the grass; horns brayed, and hounds bayed and struggled in the leash.
If they had to reach it as we did, after long days and nights in a country that affords little attraction for sportsmen, it would be no matter for wonder that they stay away.
But the Texans give me credit for killing at least 2,000 of the entire number. I was called 'the king of bird hunters' by the sportsmen of Dallas, Texas, and have been invited to command-in-chief the next party of hunters which go from Dallas to the Indian Territory in search of large game. F.L. CROW, Dallas, Texas, former Atlantan. Dallas, Texas, papers and Oklahoma papers, please copy!
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