ON PLAIN AND PEAK 



glade, I remembered the rifle that lay across my 

 knees. He stopped, and I had a steady broadside 

 shot, at not more than seventy yards. 



As I pressed the trigger, a fearfully vivid flash of 

 lightning was followed instantaneously by a tre- 

 mendous peal of thunder, in which the crack of the 

 rifle was completely lost, and down came the rain in 

 torrents. In two minutes I was wet to the skin. 



Meanwhile I searched vainly for any trace of the 

 roebuck. He had vanished as completely as if the 

 earth had opened, and swallowed him up. Not a 

 drop of blood not a footprint nothing ! 



Sadly and sorrowfully and dripping wet, I made 

 my way homewards, persuading myself that I must 

 have missed him, and that in the bursting of the 

 storm I had not noticed him go away. 



Need I say that I sat in the same hackstand the 

 next evening, and the next ? But it was not till a 

 week afterwards that I saw him again. 



He emerged from the same place, and I fired at 

 him the instant he appeared ; and again I shot as 

 he crossed the glade. He neither faltered, nor 

 hurried his pace, and disappeared as if by magic. 



Once more I sought eagerly for some trace of 

 him, but without result. I could have cried with 

 sheer vexation of spirit ! 



Of course, as is the way of most people on such 

 occasions, I blamed my rifle for these failures. So 



126 



