and have a good look round. But he did nothing of the 

 kind ; a turn or eddy of the faint breeze must have 

 given him my wind ; for there was one twitch of the 

 horns, as his nose was laid to windward, and without 

 an instant's pause he dashed off. It was the quickest 

 thing imaginable in a big animal : it looked as though 

 he started racing from his lying position. The bush 

 was not close enough to save him, however, in spite 

 of his start, and through the thin veil of smoke I saw 

 him plunge and stumble, and then dash off again ; and 

 Jock seeing me give chase, went ahead and in half a 

 minute I was left well behind, but still in sight of the 

 hunt. 



I shouted at Jock to come back, just as one murmurs 

 good-day to a passing friend in the din of traffic 

 from force of habit : of course, he could hear nothing. 

 It was his first and only go at a sable ; he knew nothing 

 of the terrible horns and the deadly scythe-like sweep 

 that makes the wounded sable so dangerous even the 

 lioness had fought shy of them and great as was my 

 faith in him, the risk in this case was not one I would 

 have taken. There was nothing to do but follow. 

 A quarter of a mile on I drew closer up and found 

 them standing face to face among the thorns. It was 

 the first of three or four stands ; the sable, with a 

 watchful eye on me, always moved on as I drew near 

 enough to shoot. The beautiful black and white bull 

 stood facing his little red enemy and the fence and play 

 of feint and thrust, guard and dodge, was wonderful 

 to see. Not once did either touch the other ; at 

 Jock's least movement the sable's head would go down 



437 



