Allan and the Holy Flower | Page 2

personally, I judge by it
almost as much as by the face. This voice was particularly pleasant and
sympathetic, though there was nothing very original or striking in the
words by which it was, so to speak, introduced to me. These were:
"How do you do, sir. Will you have a split?"
I answered that I never drank spirits in the daytime, or at least not often,
but that I should be pleased to take a small bottle of beer.
When the beer was consumed we walked up together to my little house
on which is now called the Berea, the same in which, amongst others, I
received my friends, Curtis and Good, in after days, and there we dined.
Indeed, Charlie Scroope never left that house until we started on our
shooting expedition.
Now I must cut all this story short, since it is only incidentally that it
has to do with the tale I am going to tell. Mr. Scroope was a rich man
and as he offered to pay all the expenses of the expedition while I was
to take all the profit in the shape of ivory or anything else that might
accrue, of course I did not decline his proposal.
Everything went well with us on that trip until its unfortunate end. We
only killed two elephants, but of other game we found plenty. It was
when we were near Delagoa Bay on our return that the accident
happened.
We were out one evening trying to shoot something for our dinner,
when between the trees I caught sight of a small buck. It vanished
round a little promontory of rock which projected from the side of the
kloof, walking quietly, not running in alarm. We followed after it. I was
the first, and had just wriggled round these rocks and perceived the
buck standing about ten paces away (it was a bush-bok), when I heard a

rustle among the bushes on the top of the rock not a dozen feet above
my head, and Charlie Scroope's voice calling:
"Look out, Quatermain! He's coming."
"Who's coming?" I answered in an irritated tone, for the noise had
made the buck run away.
Then it occurred to me, all in an instant of course, that a man would not
begin to shout like that for nothing; at any rate when his supper was
concerned. So I glanced up above and behind me. To this moment I can
remember exactly what I saw. There was the granite water-worn
boulder, or rather several boulders, with ferns growing in their cracks
of the maiden-hair tribe, most of them, but some had a silver sheen on
the under side of their leaves. On one of these leaves, bending it down,
sat a large beetle with red wings and a black body engaged in rubbing
its antennæ with its front paws. And above, just appearing over the top
of the rock, was the head of an extremely fine leopard. As I write to
seem to perceive its square jowl outlined against the arc of the quiet
evening sky with the saliva dropping from its lips.
This was the last thing which I did perceive for a little while, since at
that moment the leopard--we call them tigers in South Africa-- dropped
upon my back and knocked me flat as a pancake. I presume that it also
had been stalking the buck and was angry at my appearance on the
scene. Down I went, luckily for me, into a patch of mossy soil.
"All up!" I said to myself, for I felt the brute's weight upon my back
pressing me down among the moss, and what was worse, its hot breath
upon my neck as it dropped its jaws to bite me in the head. Then I
heard the report of Scroope's rifle, followed by furious snarling from
the leopard, which evidently had been hit. Also it seemed to think that I
had caused its injuries, for it seized me by the shoulder. I felt its teeth
slip along my skin, but happily they only fastened in the shooting coat
of tough corduroy that I was wearing. It began to shake me, then let go
to get a better grip. Now, remembering that Scroope only carried a light,
single-barrelled rifle, and therefore could not fire again, I knew, or
thought I knew, that my time had come. I was not exactly afraid, but

the sense of some great, impending chance became very vivid. I
remembered--not my whole life, but one or two odd little things
connected with my infancy. For instance, I seemed to see myself seated
on my mother's knee, playing with a little jointed gold-fish which she
wore upon her watch-chain.
After this I muttered a word or two of supplication, and, I think,