ROEBUCK SHOOTING ON THE BANKS OF THE RHINE. 259 



in. A front shot was offered and promptly accepted. The 

 bright gay countenance, the proudly antlered forehead were lost 

 in a smoke cloud. The fell deed again was done, for a certainty. 

 But a moment afterwards the old forester sprang on to a bank ; 



and a barrel apiece went from us into thick jungle that we 

 might have bombarded for a week without reaching any object 

 within. The old man had a lot to say, in High Dutch and 

 patois being evidently of opinion that we had bungled the 

 business once more. Indeed, he pulled me back as if we had 

 been walking upon a wounded tiger, when I pointed out a 

 prone but still struggling form, not ten yards from where our 

 game had disappeared. Then I thought he would have danced 

 till with a swoop he came down upon the roebuck, and knifed 

 him at the back of the head as you or I would have done a 

 pike. " Ver' gut roe ! " he kept repeating at intervals for the 

 next hour. And this time he consented to act as intermediary 

 for my obtaining the whole head. " Five pounds of meat I 



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