“All over . . . oh yes, the danger is past, let us smoke cigarettes, let us do anything we please. Oh yes . . . enjoy ourselves—oh my merciful God . . .” His words died into Arabic again.
“We didn’t skid,” said Adela, who had seen the cause of the accident, and thought everyone must have seen it too. “We ran into an animal.”
A loud cry broke from the old man: his terror was disproportionate and ridiculous.
“A large animal rushed up out of the dark on the right and hit us.”
“By Jove, she’s right,” Ronny exclaimed. “The paint’s gone.”
“By Jove, sir, your lady is right,” echoed the Eurasian. Just by the hinges of the door was a dent, and the door opened with difficulty.
“Of course I’m right. I saw its hairy back quite plainly.”
“I don’t know the animals any better than the birds here—too big for a goat.”
“Exactly, too big for a goat . . .” said the old man.
Ronny said, “Let’s go into this; let’s look for its tracks.”
“Exactly; you wish to borrow this electric torch.”
The English people walked a few steps back into the darkness, united and happy. Thanks to their youth and upbringing, they were not upset by the accident. They traced back the writhing of the tyres to the source of their disturbance. It was just after the exit from a bridge; the animal had probably come up out of the nullah. Steady and smooth ran the marks of the car, ribbons neatly nicked with lozenges, then all went mad. Certainly some external force had impinged, but the road had been used by too many objects for any one track to be legible, and the torch created such high lights and black shadows that they could not interpret what it revealed. Moreover, Adela in her excitement knelt and swept her skirts about, until it was she if anyone who appeared to have attacked the car. The incident was a great relief to them both. They forgot their abortive personal relationship, and felt adventurous as they muddled about in the dust.
“I believe it was a buffalo,” she called to their host, who had not accompanied them.
Ronny approved this last conjecture. Hyenas prowl in nullahs and headlights dazzle them.
“Excellent, a hyena,” said the Indian with an angry irony and a gesture at the night. “Mr. Harris!”
“Half a mo-ment. Give me ten minutes’ time.”