The Women Were Ordered One Way And The Attendants
Another, Whilst I Had To Load The Gun On The Best Way I Could
With The Last Charge And A Half Left In The King's Pouch.
Ten
grains were all he would have allowed himself, reserving the
residue, without reflecting that a large bird required much shot;
and he was shocked to find me lavishly use the whole, and still
say it was not enough.
The bird was then at a great height, so that the first shot
merely tickled him, and drove him to another tree. "Woh! woh!"
cried the king, "I am sure he is hit; look there, look there;"
and away he rushed after the bird; down with one fence, then with
another, in the utmost confusion, everybody trying to keep his
proper place, till at last the tree to which the bird had flown
was reached, and then, with the last charge of shot, the king
killed his first nundo. The bird, however, did not fall, but lay
like a spread eagle in the upper branches. Wasoga were called to
climb the tree and pull it down; whilst the king, in ecstasies of
joy and excitement, rushed up and down the potato-field like a
mad bull, jumping and plunging, waving and brandishing the gun
above his head; whilst the drums beat, the attendants all woh-
wohed, and the women, joining with their lord, rushed about
lullalooing and dancing like insane creatures. Then began
congratulations and hand-shakings, and, finally, the inspection
of the bird, which, by this time, the Wasoga had thrown down.
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