disabled or it would have died in far less time than 

 that : then, what a fight it must have been to kill 

 an animal six or eight times his own weight and 

 armed with such horns and hoofs ! But was it only 

 the impala ? or had the hyenas and wild dogs followed 

 up the trail, as they so often do, and did Jock have to 

 fight his way through them too ? 



He was hollow-flanked and empty, parched with 

 thirst, and so blown that his breath still caught in 

 suffocating chokes. He was covered with blood and 

 sand ; his beautiful golden coat was dark and stained ; 

 his white front had disappeared ; and there on his 

 chest and throat, on his jaws and ears, down his front 

 legs even to the toes, the blood was caked on him 

 mostly black and dried but some still red and sticky. 

 He was a little lame in one fore-leg, but there was 

 no cut or swelling to show the cause. There was only 

 one mark to be seen : over his right eye there was 

 a bluish line where the hair had been shaved off clean, 

 leaving the skin smooth and unbroken. What did 

 it ? Was it horn, hoof, tooth, or what ? Only 

 Jock knew. 



Hovering round and over me, pacing backwards 

 and forwards between the waggons like a caged 

 animal, Jim, growing more and more excited, filled 

 the air with his talk his shouts and savage song. Want- 

 ing to help, but always in the way, ordering and thrust- 

 ing the other boys here and there, he worked 

 himself up into a wild frenzy : it 

 the Zulu fighting blood on fire 

 and he ' saw red ' everywhere. 

 167 



