Just then Egbert entered the breakfast-room, wearing an air of bereavement that Laura's demise would have been insufficient, in itself, to account for.
"Four of my speckled Sussex have been killed," he exclaimed; "the very four that were to go to the show on Friday. One of them was dragged away and eaten right in the middle of that new carnation bed that I've been to such trouble and expense over. My best flower bed and my best fowls singled out for destruction; it almost seems as if the brute that did the deed had special knowledge how to be as devastating as possible in a short space of time.""Was it a fox, do you think?" asked Amanda.
"Sounds more like a polecat," said Sir Lulworth.
"No," said Egbert, "there were marks of webbed feet all over the place, and we followed the tracks down to the stream at the bottom of the garden; evidently an otter."Amanda looked quickly and furtively across at Sir Lulworth.
Egbert was too agitated to eat any breakfast, and went out to superintend the strengthening of the poultry yard defences.
"I think she might at least have waited till the funeral was over," said Amanda in a scandalised voice.
"It's her own funeral, you know," said Sir Lulworth;"it's a nice point in etiquette how far one ought to show respect to one's own mortal remains."Disregard for mortuary convention was carried to further lengths next day; during the absence of the family at the funeral ceremony the remaining survivors of the speckled Sussex were massacred. The marauder's line of retreat seemed to have embraced most of the flower beds on the lawn, but the strawberry beds in the lower garden had also suffered.
"I shall get the otter hounds to come here at the earliest possible moment," said Egbert savagely.
"On no account! You can't dream of such a thing!"exclaimed Amanda. "I mean, it wouldn't do, so soon after a funeral in the house.""It's a case of necessity," said Egbert; "once an otter takes to that sort of thing it won't stop.""Perhaps it will go elsewhere now there are no more fowls left," suggested Amanda.
"One would think you wanted to shield the beast,"said Egbert.
"There's been so little water in the stream lately,"objected Amanda; "it seems hardly sporting to hunt an animal when it has so little chance of taking refuge anywhere.""Good gracious!" fumed Egbert, "I'm not thinking about sport. I want to have the animal killed as soon as possible."Even Amanda's opposition weakened when, during church time on the following Sunday, the otter made its way into the house, raided half a salmon from the larder and worried it into scaly fragments on the Persian rug in Egbert's studio.
"We shall have it hiding under our beds and biting pieces out of our feet before long," said Egbert, and from what Amanda knew of this particular otter she felt that the possibility was not a remote one.
On the evening preceding the day fixed for the hunt Amanda spent a solitary hour walking by the banks of the stream, making what she imagined to be hound noises. It was charitably supposed by those who overheard her performance, that she was practising for farmyard imitations at the forth-coming village entertainment.
It was her friend and neighbour, Aurora Burret, who brought her news of the day's sport.
"Pity you weren't out; we had quite a good day. We found at once, in the pool just below your garden.""Did you - kill?" asked Amanda.
"Rather. A fine she-otter. Your husband got rather badly bitten in trying to 'tail it.' Poor beast, I felt quite sorry for it, it had such a human look in its eyes when it was killed. You'll call me silly, but do you know who the look reminded me of? My dear woman, what is the matter?"When Amanda had recovered to a certain extent from her attack of nervous prostration Egbert took her to the Nile Valley to recuperate. Change of scene speedily brought about the desired recovery of health and mental balance. The escapades of an adventurous otter in search of a variation of diet were viewed in their proper light.
Amanda's normally placid temperament reasserted itself.
Even a hurricane of shouted curses, coming from her husband's dressing-room, in her husband's voice, but hardly in his usual vocabulary, failed to disturb her serenity as she made a leisurely toilet one evening in a Cairo hotel.
"What is the matter? What has happened?" she asked in amused curiosity.
"The little beast has thrown all my clean shirts into the bath! Wait till I catch you, you little - ""What little beast?" asked Amanda, suppressing a desire to laugh; Egbert's language was so hopelessly inadequate to express his outraged feelings.
"A little beast of a naked brown Nubian boy,"spluttered Egbert.
And now Amanda is seriously ill.
