I looked up, and presently caught sight of one of the woodcocks coming down the wind upon me like a flash.  In that dim light I could not follow all his movements as he zigzagged through the naked tree-tops; indeed I could see him when his wings flitted up.  Now he was passing me—­bang, and a flick of the wing, I had missed him; bang again.  Surely he was down; no, there he went to my left.

“Cock to you,” I shouted, stepping forward so as to get Quatermain between me and the faint angry light of the dying day, for I wanted to see if he would “wipe my eye.”  I knew him to be a wonderful shot, but I thought that cock would puzzle him.

I saw him raise his gun ever so little and bend forward, and at that moment out flashed two woodcocks into the open, the one I had missed to his right, and the other to his left.

At the same time a fresh shout arose of, “Woodcock over,” and looking down the spinney I saw a third bird high up in the air, being blown along like a brown and whirling leaf straight over Quatermain’s head.  And then followed the prettiest little bit of shooting that I ever saw.  The bird to the right was flying low, not ten yards from the line of a hedgerow, and Quatermain took him first because he would become invisible the soonest of any.  Indeed, nobody who had not his hawk’s eyes could have seen to shoot at all.  But he saw the bird well enough to kill it dead as a stone.  Then turning sharply, he pulled on the second bird at about forty-five yards, and over he went.  By this time the third woodcock was nearly over him, and flying very high, straight down the wind, a hundred feet up or more, I should say.  I saw him glance at it as he opened his gun, threw out the right cartridge and slipped in another, turning round as he did so.  By this time the cock was nearly fifty yards away from him, and travelling like a flash.  Lifting his gun he fired after it, and, wonderful as the shot was, killed it dead.  A tearing gust of wind caught the dead bird, and blew it away like a leaf torn from an oak, so that it fell a hundred and thirty yards off or more.

“I say, Quatermain,” I said to him when the beaters were up, “do you often do this sort of thing?”

“Well,” he answered, with a dry smile, “the last time I had to load three shots as quickly as that was at rather larger game.  It was at elephants.  I killed them all three as dead as I killed those woodcocks; but it very nearly went the other way, I can tell you; I mean that they very nearly killed me.”

Just at that moment the keeper came up, “Did you happen to get one of them there cocks, sir?” he said, with the air of a man who did not in the least expect an answer in the affirmative.

“Well, yes, Jeffries,” answered Quatermain; “you will find one of them by the hedge, and another about fifty yards out by the plough there to the left——­”

The keeper had turned to go, looking a little astonished, when Quatermain called him back.