106 LARGE GAME. CHAP. n. 



as has often been the case when I have been the cause of 

 alarm, they would gradually edge away, although they 

 could detect nothing, while, if the danger was palpable, 

 they would assemble together, the oldest males still 

 standing looking at it until the does and young ones 

 had gone some distance, when they would join them, 

 and, galloping away into the centre of the nearest plain, 

 would resume their feeding unconcernedly, conscious of 

 their safety in the bare open. The danger that now 

 threatened one of them was, however, unnoticed by them- 

 selves or by me, until I saw a long spotted body spring 

 out of the little clump of bush, and alight on the neck 

 and head of the young ram that had gone so near it. 

 The action was momentary, and the sudden change from 

 the herd of antelopes peacefully grazing, with several 

 wild pigs and a duiker in the foreground to a deserted 

 flat, tenanted only by the leopard and its struggling 

 victim, was almost theatrical. There were a few un- 

 availing plunges, a half-choked bleat, and the antelope 

 fell on the edge of the thicket in its last agonies, while 

 the great cat never stirred from its original position, and 

 never for an instant ceased tearing at its throat. 



Although I was posted there for a precisely similar 

 object to that of the leopard, while I had not even its 

 excuse of hunger and necessity, I must confess the sight 

 made me angry, and getting down, I went as near as the 

 vegetation surrounding the water enabled me to go 

 unperceived. Even here I was sixty yards off, though I 

 was at the nearest spot to the clump in which conceal- 

 ment was possible, its very isolation having probably 

 caused the leopard to choose it as making it a less sus- 



