9 8 RIFLE AND ROMANCE 



I was able to creep from my nook, and, with horns laid 

 back, stealthily retrace my way, and take a jungle path 

 that led me finally, limping, halting, out of that glen and 

 into the next. 



Proceeding thus, my fears and the smart of my wound 

 ever pressing me on, I drank at a pool, and, going stronger, 

 had put some miles between me and the scene of the 

 disaster before I crept under the thick tangle of a woody 

 hillside and laid me down. My hurt was painful ; but had 

 long since ceased bleeding, being caked with leaves. Lying 

 thus, the rapid twilight closed in, the pink glow died from 

 the opposite hillside, and a single star trembled in the 

 deepening sky. A big owl sent its weird quavering cry 

 floating over the hushed forest, and was silent. The sleepy 

 croak of a frog rose on the still air. And so the jungle 

 sank to rest. 



When the waning moon rose, about midnight, I stag- 

 gered to my feet, and crept stiffly downhill to the cold raw 

 valley, where the surface of a pool lay silver between black 

 rocks. Wading in, I stood deep in its cooling waters, 

 licking my wound clean. 



After a deep draught and a roll in the damp sand I felt 

 better, and stood listening. It was indeed good to live 

 again to feel once more the grand unbroken solitude of 

 my native wilds to smell the resinous perfume of the salai 

 trees standing in their ghostly array up the hillside ; to see 

 the hills slumbering under the moon, and hear the jungle 

 stir in its sleep the distant call of some wakeful night- 

 bird, or the rustle of a dried teak leaf, as it floated, twirling, 

 lightly to the ground. 



I did not fully recover from this day's trouble for many 

 long weeks, and lost condition. It was difficult to get at 

 the wound and keep it clean of flies and maggots. 



I thought deeply also on the hind's bark that had worked 

 so nearly fatally on my curiosity, and have since learned 

 that the cry of our species can be fairly well imitated by 



