It Is One Of The Many
Incongruities Of African Life That Nature Should Have Given So
Large And So Impressive A Creature The Petulant Yapping Of An
Exasperated Pomeranian Lap Dog.
At the end of three quarters of
an hour of more or less stumbling progress, we made out against
the sky the twisted treelet that served as our landmark.
Billy
dismounted, turned the mule over to the syce, and we crept slowly
forward until within a guessed two or three hundred yards of our
kill.
Nothing remained now but to wait for the daylight. It had already
begun to show. Over behind the distant mountains some one was
kindling the fires, and the stars were flickering out. The
splendid ferocity of the African sunrise was at hand. Long bands
of slate dark clouds lay close along the horizon, and behind them
glowed a heart of fire, as on a small scale the lamplight glows
through a metal-worked shade. On either side the sky was pale
green-blue, translucent and pure, deep as infinity itself. The
earth was still black, and the top of the rise near at hand was
clear edged. On that edge, and by a strange chance accurately in
the centre of illumination, stood the uncouth massive form of a
shaggy wildebeeste, his head raised, staring to the east. He did
not move; nothing of that fire and black world moved; only
instant by instant it changed, swelling in glory toward some
climax until one expected at any moment a fanfare of trumpets,
the burst of triumphant culmination.
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