234 RIFLE AND ROMANCE 



and in " velvet," so lowered the rifle, arid he disappeared, 

 unmolested, crashing down through thick jungle, in long, 

 heavy, but sure-footed bounds. 



The men climbed down to me in time, and I then heard 

 that a very large stag, presumably my old friend of Jhakra, 

 had again broken back. He had then been seen slowly 

 making off, at his leisure, towards the spot where he had 

 originally been roused. The stag which I had just seen 

 was his companion, and had no doubt been made use of to 

 cover his retreat by this cunning old beast, who had then 

 sneaked off in the opposite direction. After resting by the 

 nearest pool in the ravine below, and sampling the contents 

 of the tiffin-basket, we returned to Jhakra and tried for 

 the old stag, but without success. The afternoon was now 

 wearing rapidly away, so, turning southwards, we left the 

 big hill and worked through the cup-like hollows, nearer 

 Barhanpur, for about an hour. 



I was proceeding carelessly up one side of a little pre- 

 cipitous knoll, on the far side of which toiled the men, 

 when the sharp crack of a twig caused me to glance up, 

 and there, almost perpendicularly above me, and not sixty 

 yards off, stood a monster stag horns laid back, mane 

 bristling, and tail standing stiffly out! His vital parts 

 were protected, more or less, however, by a maze of 

 branches, the smallest of which might have turned a bullet, 

 and next moment he was off, at a lumbering canter : a 

 snapshot was fired at him as he burst across an open 

 space, and a despairing left barrel loosed as the huge black 

 back and yellow rump disappeared with a lurch over the 

 sky-line. 



Shoving in fresh cartridges, I tore up after him as he 

 must cross a certain large open space of grass ere gaining 

 the forest beyond, and looked in vain for his dark shape, 

 which ought now to be crossing the grass; but he had 

 vanished. Moreover, no sound of his retreat could be 

 heard in the coppices to right or left. We were just going 



