160 RIFLE AND ROMANCE 



Bang! and a fragment of an express bullet, ricochetting 

 off the hard ground, rushed shrilly by me. Bang! and 

 another bullet whispered high over my head ; and in the 

 distance a line of women, picking cotton, stood up with 

 frightened faces. I glanced back. My sportsman was 

 gazing sadly after me ! I have seen him do so many a 

 time ; and, later, I came to know him well. Many a dull 

 half-hour has he enlivened ! I look for his white topi on 

 Thursdays and Sundays as a relief to the monotony of 

 my existence. Once he brought a very fat sahib with 

 him, who wounded me ; but I got away, and am all right 

 now. 



My last adventure was of a different type. One Thurs- 

 day I was making across a field some way behind my does, 

 when a slight movement caught my eye ; it was the topi 

 of a sahib, and he was lying behind a little mound. Of 

 course, I was off at my best pace, until I had put 300 

 yards between us : this I always considered perfect safety, 

 so I wheeled, and stood to have another look. 



Something shone dully behind the mound for an instant 

 then tipped suddenly up, and, simultaneously, " Tuck ! " 

 came a slight report a mere crack somewhere in the air 

 above me, and a searing pain cut along the lower edge of 

 my belly. It was only a graze ; but the frightful force 

 with which the bullet twanged off the ground, far beyond 

 me, with a peculiar high-pitched pinging sound, and the 

 absence of the usual smoke from behind the mound, told 

 me of a new destructive force, and one to be terribly 

 feared. 



I am getting on in years now, and, I suppose, in spite of 

 my watchful does, shall some day fall to the sahib with 

 that strange new rifle. And a worthy spoil shall I make. 

 A twenty-five-inch head ; a fine glossy coat, which I have 

 defended unscarred through hundreds of hard-fought fights ; 

 a buck worth bagging ! 



And, if I fall, may it be fairly ! Stalk me fairly, sahib ! 



