When the morning of the shooting party arrived Wargrave and Raymond, having sent their syces on ahead with their guns, rode at dawn to the Residency.  In front of the building a group of camels lay on the ground, burbling, blowing bubbles, grumbling incessantly and stretching out their long necks to snap viciously at anyone but their drivers that chanced to come near them.  At the hall-door Mrs. Norton stood, dressed in a smart and attractive costume of khaki drill, consisting of a well-cut long frock coat and breeches, with the neatest of cloth gaiters and dainty but serviceable boots.  To their surprise her husband was with her and evidently prepared to accompany them.  For he wore an old coat, knickerbockers and putties, from a strap over his shoulder hung a specimen box, and he was armed with all the requisite appliances for the capture and slaughter of many insects.

Avoiding the camels’ vicious teeth the party mounted after exchanging greetings.  Mrs. Norton and Wargrave rode the same animal; and Frank, unused to this form of locomotion, took a tight grip as the long-legged beast rose from the ground in unexpected jerks and set off at a jolting walk that shook its riders painfully.  Then it broke into a trot equally disconcerting but finally settled into an easy canter that was as comfortable a motion as its previous paces had been spine-dislocating.  The route lay at first over a space of desert which was unpleasant, for the sand was blown in clouds by a high wind, almost a gale.  But the camels were fast movers and it did not take very long before they were passing through scrub jungle and finally reached the wide stretch of cultivation near Marwa.

The tank, as lakes are called in India, lay in the centre of a shallow depression, the rim of which all round was about four hundred yards from the water which, now half a mile across, evidently filled the whole basin in the rainy season.  The strong breeze churned its surface into little waves and piled up masses of froth and foam against the bending reeds at one end of the tank, where, about fifty yards from the water’s edge stood a couple of thorny trees, offering almost the only shade to be found for a long distance around.  In the shallows were many yellow egrets, while a sarus crane stalked solemnly along the far bank, and everywhere bird-life, rare elsewhere in the State, abounded.  The land all about was green, a refreshing change from the usual sandy and parched character of most of the country.

But beyond the tank the fields stretched away out of sight.  At the edge of the cultivation the camels were halted and the party dismounted from them and separated.  Mrs. Norton, who was a fair shot and carried a light 12-bore gun, started to walk up the partridges with Raymond, while her husband went to search the reeds and the borders of the lake for strange insects.  Wargrave armed with a sporting Mannlicher rifle, set off on a long tramp to look for chinkara, which are pretty little antelope with curving horns.  The wind, which was freshening, prevented the heat from being excessive.