238 LARGE GAME. chap. V. 



Luckily my warning was not needed ; a howl and a splash, 

 and the dog had saved its masters life by the sacrifice of 

 its own. 



After this the brute never left us till its death, and 

 became the torment of our lives. If we bathed, there it 

 was with its ugly head as close in as it dared to come, 

 watching us ; if the boys went to draw water, they were 

 afraid to go in where it was deep, and consequently cool, 

 and brought us lukewarm stuff instead. Two of our dogs 

 disappeared, both placed to the crocodile's account, as 

 they were known to be fond of lying in the stream, cool- 

 ing their bodies during the great heat. We could not 

 cross there, and were obliged in consequence to go round 

 some three miles every time we wanted to do so ; and 

 some Bombo Kaffirs, who had come to us, bringing beer 

 and Indian corn for the hunters in exchange for meat, 

 said that the ford had become disused, as I had noticed 

 the day we arrived, on its account, and after two men had 

 been taken by it. 



The amount of lead that was wasted on the quarter of 

 an inch of head that it showed us was a serious loss in 

 such an out-of-the-way place, where every bullet ought to 

 tell, and its death was determined upon. Once we armed 

 ourselves with spears, and wading through the shallows, 

 surrounded the hole in which we knew that he lay ; but, 

 having got so far, a panic seized us, and everybody 

 splashed out as quickly as possible. At last I told one of 

 the hunters to watch for it all day until he killed it, as we 

 knew it always came up for an hour or two underneath a 

 bush on the opposite side, but at the first suspicious indi- 

 cation would sink again, and only reappear in mid- 



