390 LARGE GAME. chap. viii. 



of the leopard, were plain enough without the body of the 

 nkonka, as I now perceived it to be, over which the 

 native was bending. The struggle must have been terrific ; 

 no doubt the great cat had sprung on its victim unawares, 

 but it must have been thrown off almost immediately 

 afterwards, and repulsed again and again by the antelope 

 before it succeeded in killing it. The marks on the latter 

 told their own tale : there was a line on the haunches 

 where it had probably been first seized, and the whole of 

 its shoulders and the lower part of its neck were simply 

 torn to pieces, while four deep marks in the latter part 

 showed how the death-wound had been administered. I 

 wondered how that leopard felt as he stood there victorious 

 in the cool grey of early morning, and was in the act of 

 turning away rather disgusted with the sight, when the 

 native called me, and showed me that one of the horns was 

 dyed with blood up to the very forehead, and on examin- 

 ing it I found several of the leopard's hairs which had 

 adhered to it, leaving no doubt whatever but that it also 

 was severely wounded. 



Having heard and seen too much of these carnivora to 

 care to follow a wounded one up in jungle without the 

 assistance of a dog, I sent the Kaffir back to the waggon 

 to fetch two that were there, and to call some of the 

 hunters who were with it, in the meanwhile drawing the 

 bullets with which my gun was loaded, and replacing 

 them with slugs. However, all my precautions were use- 

 less, as the dogs bayed a flat-topped rock above them, 

 not fifty yards from where the nkonka lay dead, and 

 there we found the still warm body of its adversary, 

 stretched out in a position so exactly resembling sleep, 



