The Leopard Woman | Page 8

the earth or--as some maintain--by a telepathic sense of danger.
Certainly, as far as they knew, neither Kingozi nor Mali-ya-bwana had
disturbed a pebble or broken a twig.
The rhinoceros faced them, snorting loudly. The sound was exactly that
of steam roaring from a locomotive's safety valve. Strangely enough, in
spite of the massive structure and the loose, thick skin of the beast, it
conveyed an impression of taut, nervous muscles. Though it faced
directly toward them, the men knew that they were as yet unseen. The
rhinoceros' eyesight is very short, or very circumscribed, or both; and
only objects in motion and comparatively close enter its range of vision.
Kingozi and his man held themselves rigidly immovable, waiting for
what would happen. The rhinoceros, too, held himself rigidly
immovable, his nostrils dilating between snorts, his ears turning; for his
senses of smell and hearing made up in their keenness for the defects of
his eyes.
Suddenly, without the slightest warning, he stuck his tail perpendicular
and plunged forward at a clumsy-looking but exceedingly swift gallop.
An inexperienced man would have considered himself the object of a
deliberate "charge"; but an old African traveller, such as Kingozi, knew
this for a blind rush in the direction toward which the animal happened
to be headed. The rhinoceros, alarmed by the first intimation of danger,
unable to get further news from its keener senses, had been seized by a
panic. Were nothing to deflect him from the straight line, he would
continue ahead on it until the panic had run out.
But the two men were exactly in that line!
Kingozi hitched his light rifle forward imperceptibly. Although this
was at present only a blind rush, should the rhinoceros catch sight of

them he would fight; and within twenty-five yards or so his eyesight
would be quite good enough. As the beast did not slow up in the first
ten yards, but rather settled into its stride, Kingozi took rapid aim and
fired.
His intention was neither to kill nor to cripple his antagonist. If that had
been the case, he would have used the heavy double rifle that Mali-ya-
bwana held ready near his elbow. The bullet inflicted a slight flesh
wound in the outer surface of the beast's left shoulder. Kingozi instantly
passed the light rifle back with his right hand, at the same motion
seizing the double rifle with his left.
But at the spat of the bullet the rhino veered toward the direction from
which it seemed to his stupid brain the hurt had come. Tail erect, he
thundered away down the slope.
For a hundred yards he careered full speed, then slowed to a trot, finally
stopped, whirled, and faced to a new direction. The sound of his
blowing came clearly across the intervening distance.
A low bush grew near. The rhino attacked this savagely, horning it,
trampling it down. The dust arose in clouds. Then the huge brute trotted
slowly away, still snorting angrily, pausing to butt violently the larger
trees, or to tear into shreds some bush or ant hill that loomed
dangerously in the primeval fogs of his brain.
"Sorry, old chap," commented Kingozi in his own language, "but you're
none the worse. Only I'm afraid your naturally sweet temper is spoiled
for to- day, at least."
He turned to exchange guns with Mali-ya-bwana.
"_N'dio, bwana_," assented the latter to a speech of which he
understood not one word. Mali-ya-bwana was secretly a little proud of
himself for having stuck like a gun bearer, instead of shinning up a
thorn tree like a porter.
Kingozi slipped a cartridge into the rifle, and the two resumed their

walk toward the kopje.

CHAPTER IV
THE STRANGER
By the time the two men had gained the top of the hill the worst heat of
the day had passed. Kingozi seated himself on a flat rock and at once
began to take sights through a prismatic compass, entering the
observations in a pocketbook. Mali-ya-bwana, bolt upright, stared out
over the thinly wooded plain below. He reported the result of his
scouting in a low voice, to which the white man paid no attention
whatever.
"_Twiga[2] bwana_," he said, and then, as his eye caught the flash of
many sing-sing horns, "_kuru, mingi_." Thus he named over the
different animals--the topi, the red hartebeeste, the eland, zebra, some
warthogs, and many others. The beasts were anticipating the cool of the
afternoon, and were grazing slowly out from beneath the trees,
scattering abroad over the landscape.
[Footnote 2: Giraffe.]
From even this slight elevation the outlook extended. Isolated mountain
ranges showed loftier; the tops of unguessed hills peeped above the
curve of the earth; the clear line of the horizon had receded to the outer
confines of terrestrial space, but even