172 THE IMAGE OF WAR 



''Did he think I had come all this way to see him 

 miss game ? " I wondered. We passed the crater, now 

 a lakelet, referred to by Herr Eeiser, and then we 

 arrived at a deep ravine backed by tremendous cliffs, 

 almost sheer. We were going towards the sea on the 

 Milo side when suddenly Giorgio hurried me oif to the 

 right, to the very edge of the chasm. There, ascend- 

 ing the almost perpendicular rocks opposite, was a 

 band of seven magnificent bucks. This time the 

 shepherds showed no desire to anticipate my shot, and 

 no wonder, for the range was an extreme one for me. 

 I threw myself down and loaded, but waited for some 

 time, hoping that, like chamois, they would presently 

 stop and look back. Finding they did not, and urged 

 by Giorgio, I did take a shot at the biggest that 

 showed clear, but my want of faith in myself was 

 justified. Then I watched them disappear round the 

 face of the cliff, each huge pair of horns being out- 

 lined against the sky as they did so. What heads ! 

 The last ibex was so light a grey as to be almost 

 white. It would appear that the old bucks leave the 

 herds about the time the does drop their kids, for on 

 my second visit to Antimilo, which was in the begin- 

 ning of December, the best bucks were with the herds, 

 and not in bands by themselves like this. The kids 

 are born in January. 



After this we commenced our tiring descent to the 

 boat. During the afternoon the sounds of heavy guns 

 from Crete, the nearest land to the southward, had 

 been distinctly audible, and this, as I afterwards 

 learned, was the very day on which the ships fired on 

 the insurgents. Next morning, too, I heard guns, but 

 that was distinctly a salute — seven spaced shots. I 

 was almost beat by the time I got down to the boat, 



