“Well,” said Good, “that is a capital yarn of yours, Quatermain, but——”
“But what?” he asked sharply, foreseeing a draw.
“But I don’t think that it was so good as mine about the ibex—it hasn’t the same _finish_.”
Mr. Quatermain made no reply. Good was beneath it.
“Do you know, gentlemen,” he said, “it is half-past two in the morning, and if we are going to shoot the big wood to-morrow we ought to leave here at nine-thirty sharp.”
“Oh, if you shoot for a hundred years you will never beat the record of those three woodcocks,” I said.
“Or of those three elephants,” added Sir Henry.
And then we all went to bed, and I dreamed that I had married Maiwa, and was much afraid of that attractive but determined lady.