Maiwas Revenge | Page 8

a cart-road, evidently made by a
great herd of buffaloes which had passed up at dawn from their feeding

ground in the marshes, to spend the day in the cool air of the uplands.
This trail I followed boldly; for such wind as there was blew straight
down the mountain-side, that is, from the direction in which the
buffaloes had gone, to me. About a mile further on the forest began to
be dense, and the nature of the trail showed me that I must be close to
my game. Another two hundred yards and the bush was so thick that,
had it not been for the trail, we could scarcely have passed through it.
As it was, Gobo, who carried my eight-bore rifle (for I had
the .570-express in my hand), and the other two men whom I had taken
with me, showed the very strongest dislike to going any further,
pointing out that there was 'no room to run away.' I told them that they
need not come unless they liked, but that I was certainly going on; and
then, growing ashamed, they came.
"Another fifty yards, and the trail opened into a little glade. I knelt
down and peeped and peered, but no buffalo could I see. Evidently the
herd had broken up here--I knew that from the spoor--and penetrated
the opposite bush in little troops. I crossed the glade, and choosing one
line of spoor, followed it for some sixty yards, when it became clear to
me that I was surrounded by buffaloes; and yet so dense was the cover
that I could not see any. A few yards to my left I could hear one
rubbing its horns against a tree, while from my right came an
occasional low and throaty grunt which told me that I was
uncomfortably near an old bull. I crept on towards him with my heart in
my mouth, as gently as though I were walking upon eggs for a bet,
lifting every little bit of wood in my path, and placing it behind me lest
it should crack and warn the game. After me in single file came my
three retainers, and I don't know which of them looked the most
frightened. Presently Gobo touched my leg; I glanced round, and saw
him pointing slantwise towards the left. I lifted my head a little and
peeped over a mass of creepers; beyond the creepers was a dense bush
of sharp-pointed aloes, of that kind of which the leaves project laterally,
and on the other side of the aloes, not fifteen paces from us, I made out
the horns, neck, and the ridge of the back of a tremendous old bull. I
took my eight-bore, and getting on to my knee prepared to shoot him
through the neck, taking my chance of cutting his spine. I had already
covered him as well as the aloe leaves would allow, when he gave a

kind of sigh and lay down.
"I looked round in dismay. What was to be done now? I could not see
to shoot him lying down, even if my bullet would have pierced the
intervening aloes--which was doubtful--and if I stood up he would
either run away or charge me. I reflected, and came to the conclusion
that the only thing to do was to lie down also; for I did not fancy
wandering after other buffaloes in that dense bush. If a buffalo lies
down, it is clear that he must get up again some time, so it was only a
case of patience--'fighting the fight of sit down,' as the Zulus say.
"Accordingly I sat down and lighted a pipe, thinking that the smell of it
might reach the buffalo and make him get up. But the wind was the
wrong way, and it did not; so when it was done I lit another.
Afterwards I had cause to regret that pipe.
"Well, we squatted like this for between half and three quarters of an
hour, till at length I began to grow heartily sick of the performance. It
was about as dull a business as the last hour of a comic opera. I could
hear buffaloes snorting and moving all round, and see the red- beaked
tic birds flying up off their backs, making a kind of hiss as they did so,
something like that of the English missel-thrush, but I could not see a
single buffalo. As for my old bull, I think he must have slept the sleep
of the just, for he never even stirred.
"Just as I was making up my mind that something must be done to save
the situation, my attention was attracted by a curious grinding noise. At
first I thought that it must be a buffalo chewing the cud,