There was a twinkle in Jack Meredith's eyes, but Oscard was quite grave.

His sense of humour was not very keen, and he was before all things a sportsman.
"I left the canoes a mile below Msala, and landed to shoot a deer we saw drinking, but I never saw him.

Then I heard you, and I have been stalking you ever since." "But I never expected you so soon; you were not due till--look!" Jack whispered suddenly.
Oscard turned on his heel, and the next instant their two rifles rang out through the forest stillness in one sharp crack.

Across the stream, ten yards behind the spot where Oscard had emerged from the bush, a leopard sprang into the air, five feet from the ground, with head thrown back, and paws clawing at the thinness of space with grand free sweeps.
The beast fell with a thud, and lay still--dead.
The two men clambered across the rocks again, side by side.

While they stood over the prostrate form of the leopard--beautiful, incomparably graceful and sleek even in death--Guy Oscard stole a sidelong glance at his companion.