, notably that of a great ibex with
magnificent horns.

'Come, now, tell me all about it,' said Rolfe, as he mixed himself a
glass of whisky and water. 'I don't see that anything has gone from
this room.'

'Don't you?' cried his host, with a scornful laugh. 'Where are my
silver-mounted pistols? Where's the ibex-hoof made into a paperweight?
And'--he raised his voice to a shout of comical despair--'where's my
cheque-book?'

'I see.'

'I wish _I_ did. It must break the record for a neat house-robbery,
don't you think? And they'll never be caught--I'll bet you anything you
like they won't. The job was planned weeks ago; that woman came into
the house with no other purpose.'

'But didn't your wife know anything about her?'

'What can one know about such people? There were references, I
believe--as valuable as references usually are. She must be an old
hand. But I'm sick of the subject; let's drop it.--You were
interrupted, Hollings. What about that bustard?'

A very tall, spare man, who seemed to rouse himself from a nap, resumed
his story of bustard-stalking in Spain last spring. Carnaby, who knew
the country well, listened with lively interest, and followed with
reminiscences of his own. He told of a certain boar, shot in the
Sierras, which weighed something like four hundred pounds. He talked,
too, of flamingoes on the 'marismas' of the Guadalquivir; of punting
day after day across the tawny expanse of water; of cooking his meals
on sandy islets at a fire made of tamarisk and thistle; of lying
wakeful in the damp, chilly nights, listening to frogs and bitterns.
Then again of his ibex-hunting on the Cordilleras of Castile, when he
brought down that fine fellow whose head adorned his room, the horns
just thirty-eight inches long. And in the joy of these recollections
there seemed to sound a regretful note, as if he spoke of things gone
by and irrecoverable, no longer for him.

One of the men present had recently been in Cyprus, and mentioned it
with disgust. Rolfe also had visited the island, and remembered it much
more agreeably, his impressions seeming to be chiefly gastronomic; he
recalled the exquisite flavour of Cyprian hares, the fat francolin, the
delicious beccaficoes in commanderia wine; with merry banter from
Carnaby, professing to despise a man who knew nothing of game but its
taste. The conversation reverted to technicalities of sport, full of
terms and phrases unintelligible to Harvey; recounting fe