Never Mind, It Was A Good Hunt - First-Rate - But Where Was My Camp?
It
was nearly dark, and I could just distinguish the pass in the distance,
by which we had descended the mountain; thus I knew the direction but I
had ridden about three miles, and it would be dark before I could
return.
However, I followed the heel tracks of the herd of giraffes.
Richarn was nowhere. Although I had lost the race, and was disappointed,
I now consoled myself that it was all for the best; had I killed a
giraffe at that hour and distance from camp, what good would it have
been? I was quite alone; thus who could have found it during the night?
and before morning it would have been devoured by lions and hyenas;
inoffensive and beautiful creatures, what a sin it appeared to destroy
them uselessly! With these consoling and practical reflections I
continued my way, until a branch of hooked thorn fixing in my nose
disturbed the train of ideas and persuaded me that it was very dark, and
that I had lost my way, as I could no longer distinguish either the
tracks of the giraffes or the position of the mountains. Accordingly I
fired my rifle as a signal, and soon after I heard a distant report in
reply, and the blaze of a fire shot up suddenly in the distance on the
side of the mountain. With the help of this beacon I reached the spot
where our people were bivouacked; they had lighted the beacon on a rock
about fifty feet above the level, as although some twenty or thirty
fires were blazing, they had been obscured by the intervening jungle.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 305 of 662
Words from 82718 to 83003
of 178435
