Village books

I missed her clean. I took
one step backwards in the hope of getting a cartridge into my rifle, and
fell, scarcely two lengths in front of the furious beast. She missed me.
I owed my safety to that fall. And then suddenly I found that she had
collapsed. I had hit her after all. My bullet went clean through her
heart, but the spring had carried her forwards. When I scrambled to my
feet I found that she was dying. I walked back to my camp and ate a
capital breakfast.'
Oliver Haddo's story was received with astonished silence. No one could
assert that it was untrue, but he told it with a grandiloquence that
carried no conviction. Arthur would have wagered a considerable sum that
there was no word of truth in it. He had never met a person of this kind
before, and could not understand what pleasure there might be in the
elaborate invention of improbable adventures.
'You are evidently very brave,' he said.
'To follow a wounded lion into thick cover is probably the most dangerous
proceeding in the world,' said Haddo calmly.


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