110 LARGE GAME. chap. ii. 



turning round I saw them standing about seventy yards 

 off, while on looking about I noticed that the bull I had 

 knocked over had also disappeared. My first impulse 

 was to run in and fire again, but while hesitating a low 

 roaring caught my ears, and I could see that they were 

 slowly advancing. I had heard this roaring before ; it is 

 a sort of suppressed sound, and peculiar to buffalo bulls 

 when excited by the presence of a lion, and generally 

 precedes a general charge upon the common enemy. I 

 glanced behind me, the pool was thui^y yards off, and the 

 danger was every instant becoming more imminent, for 

 the brutes, whether they mistook me for a lion or not, 

 were evidently bent on mischief 



In this predicament it struck me to drop down among 

 the long grass, and then crawl as rapidly as possible to- 

 wards the pool, rightly, as it turned out, imagining that 

 they would be puzzled by my sudden disappearance, and 

 think that it concealed some stratagem. They were not 

 now more than forty yards off, and I could already see 

 that the front line was composed of bulls, so there was no 

 time to be lost, and down I went, crawHng away as hard 

 as I could go, until, finding myself on the top of the bank, 

 and not ten yards from the pool, I ventured to raise my 

 head and look back. They were still standing where I 

 had last seen them, so, aiming low, I fired both barrels 

 in succession at the dark mass, bringing them down upon 

 me like a troop of cavalry. Of course I jumped up, and 

 took to my heels, easily reaching the tree in time to see 

 them sweep round the head of the pool and gallop off in 

 a cloud of dust in the direction they had come from. 

 The next thing was to go and look whether they had 



