244 THE IMAGE OF WAR 



my water — a step I subsequently had reason to regret. 

 My first try to the gully to my left was a failure, then 

 I made towards the right, and, following an arete, was 

 not long before I sighted my beasts, now lying down. 

 The worst of it was that they also saw me ; and I 

 had to lie some time motionless under the baleful 

 gaze of the black doe. Through my glass I could 

 distinctly see her green eyes fixed upon me with such 

 an expression that I incontinently christened her 

 " Becky Sharp." After about half an hour of this I 

 turned over, and crawled on my stomach over the 

 sky-line, filling myself pretty full of thorns in the 

 process. The only shrubs and bushes of Antimilo 

 which have survived the secular attacks of ibex 

 and sheep, have done so on the principle of their 

 being the fittest to do so by reason of their natural 

 means of protection. They are, therefore, all spiny, 

 some more than others. I descended some fifty yards 

 behind the shelter of the arete and then crawled 

 out on its top again. I found my beasts — rendered 

 suspicious by my disappearance — all standing up. 

 I could get no nearer ; and the question now was 

 whether to take the shot. It was a long one — two 

 hundred and fifty yards at least, and across a deep 

 gully, by no means a promising chance. 



But whilst I lay there poudering, so to say, finger 

 on trigger, the question was settled for me. Three 

 times in succession the sharp crack of V.'s 'SOS-bore 

 rang out on the other side of the hill, and my herd 

 incontinently dashed off seawards. My first feeling 

 was one of vexation at this not unnatural result of 

 two guns working so small a piece of ground (the 

 island is only some four miles square) separately ; but 

 I think in the sequel it proved all for the best. 



