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The evening was warm and very still, and whenever the conversation died away, no sound save the monotonous note of the nightjars or the sudden cry of a barking-deer, broke the silence since the echoes of the "Lights Out" bugle call had died away among the hills. Wargrave looked at his watch. "It's past eleven o'clock," he said. "I'd no idea it was so late.
In a few minutes the three hunters had lost sight of one another, Karl and Caspar proceeding round the lake by opposite sides, but both keeping under cover of the bushes; while Ossaroo wended his way along the bottom of the cliff thinking he might have a better chance in that direction. The game which Caspar expected first might fall in his way was the "kakur," or barking-deer.
Not only the hunter, man, but the tiger, the leopard, the cheetah, and other predatory creatures, take advantage of this foolish habit of the barking-deer; and stealing upon it unawares, make it their victim.
There were other quadrupeds, and some birds too, whose flesh would have served better, as being of superior delicacy: for the venison of the barking-deer is none of the sweetest. In the autumn it is not bad nor up to a late period in the winter though it is never very delicious at any season.
And that was an unfathomable mystery. Dermot found the riddle too difficult to solve. He ceased to puzzle over it. The noises in the forest gradually died down, and the intense silence that followed was broken only by the harsh call of the barking-deer or the wailing cry of the giant owl. Fatigue overcame him, and he slept.
"And I've more than once heard a tiger loudly express his annoyance when a khakur barked as he was trying to sneak by unnoticed. There's a barking-deer." He pointed to the well-mounted head of a small deer on the wall of the dining-room. "Whom do you expect up for the Durbar, Mrs. Dermot?" asked Major Hunt. "Only Mr. Carter, the Sub-divisional Officer, and probably Mr. Benson."
A few minutes later he suddenly arrested Badshah at the edge of a fern-carpeted glade and whispered: "Look out! There's a barking-deer. Get him!" Across the glade a graceful little buck with a bright chestnut coat stepped daintily, followed at a respectful distance by his doe.
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