The Bronze Bell by Vance, Louis Joseph, 1879-1933

In its place Amber found a soiled slip of note-paper inscribed with the round, unformed handwriting of the babu: "Pardon, sahib. A mistake has been made. I seek but to regain that which is not yours to possess. There will be naught else taken. A thousand excuses from your hmbl. obt. svt., Behari Lal Chatterji."

CHAPTER III

MAROONED

A cry in the windy dusk; a sudden, hollow booming overhead; a vision of countless wings in panic, sketched in black upon a background of dulled silver; two heavy detonations and, with the least of intervals, a third; three 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."