292 THE SULLEN FOE. 



gave my foe a view halloa, but he only violently shook 

 his head as if he hated the sound, though it no longer 

 scared him, and by the way he received the shout I saw 

 that he did not intend to retreat any more. This fact 

 ascertained, I walked my horse round him ; if I came too 

 near he charged, but at last he contented himself with 

 simply turning as I turned, to keep his head to me, and 

 now and then, if he thought me too near, raising his tail. 

 I looked at the little carbine in my hand, and then at the 

 magnificent spectacle of the huge animal at bay, un 

 scathed and savage and robust in the wildest beauty, and 

 in my heart I could have been contented with the splen 

 did picture before me, and have permitted the warrior to 

 have gone back to his sweet-breathed kine upon the plains. 

 There we were, the bull, the horse, and myself, the sole 

 living things in sight within an area of many miles, the 

 only noise the breathing of my horse, or his occasional 

 snort, which now had no terrors for the foe, and the only 

 little difficulty that remained was to induce Taymouth to 

 let me take a steady aim. 



Once again, more to inflame my wish to kill and to 

 stifle any gentler thought than for any other purpose, I 

 neared the bull, and once more he made a desperate 

 charge, and once more I retreated, and then plainly read 

 that the mighty monarch of the desert in his mind had 

 set me down as a vanquished foe, for he took less notice 

 of me, and, with a less ferocious expression of counte 

 nance, gazed wistfully at the distant hills in which he had 

 severed from his herd. " The time is come," I whispered 

 to the silent air ; " I must kill, or in these realms my 

 power to have done so will be doubted." So I raised my 

 carbine, when Taymouth sprang like a deer for yards on 



