He Threw His Head Up
Preparatory To Starting Off, And He Was Just Upon The Move As I
Touched The Trigger.
He fell like a stone to the shot, but almost
immediately he regained his feet, and bounded off, receiving a
bullet from the second barrel without a flinch; in full speed he
rushed away across the party of aggageers about three hundred
yards distant.
Out dashed Abou Do from the ranks on his active
grey horse, and away he flew after the wounded tetel; his long
hair floating in the wind, his naked sword in hand, and his heels
digging into the flanks of his horse, as though armed with spurs
in the last finish of a race. It was a beautiful course; Abou Do
hunted like a cunning greyhound; the tetel turned, and taking
advantage of the double, he cut off the angle; succeeding by the
manoeuvre, he again followed at tremendous speed over the
numerous inequalities of the ground, gaining in the race until he
was within twenty yards of the tetel, when we lost sight of both
game and hunter in the thick bushes. By this time I had regained
my horse, that was brought to meet me, and I followed to the
spot, towards which my wife, and the aggageers encumbered with
the unwilling apes, were already hastening. Upon arrival I found,
in high yellow grass beneath a large tree, the tetel dead, and
Abou Do wiping his bloody sword, surrounded by the foremost of
the party. He had hamstrung the animal so delicately, that the
keen edge of the blade was not injured against the bone. My two
bullets had passed through the tetel; the first was too high,
having entered above the shoulder--this had dropped the animal
for a moment; the second was through the flank. The Arabs now
tied the baboons to trees, and employed themselves in carefully
skinning the tetel so as to form a sack from the hide; they had
about half finished the operation, when we were disturbed by a
peculiar sound at a considerable distance in the jungle, which,
being repeated, we knew to be the cry of buffaloes. In an instant
the tetel was neglected, the aggageers mounted their horses, and
leaving my wife with a few men to take charge of the game,
accompanied by Florian we went in search of the buffaloes. This
part of the country was covered with grass about nine feet high,
that was reduced to such extreme dryness that the stems broke
into several pieces like glass as we brushed through it. The
jungle was open, composed of thorny mimosas at such wide
intervals, that a horse could be ridden at considerable speed if
accustomed to the country. Altogether it was the perfection of
ground for shooting, and the chances were in favour of the rifle.
We had proceeded carefully about half a mile when I heard a
rustling in the grass, and I shortly perceived a bull buffalo
standing alone beneath a tree, close to the sandy bed of a dried
stream, about a hundred yards distant between us and the animal;
the grass had been entirely destroyed by the trampling of a large
herd.
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