324 THE LAND OF THE LION 



the trailing creepers from my arms and rifle. Looking 

 hard where the sound had come from, I was presently 

 able to make out a small patch of brown skin, not longer 

 than my hand, about ten yards away. I was naturally 

 most anxious not to shoot. The noise would destroy 

 my chances of coming on any buffalo thereabout, and 

 besides, this was no place to shoot anything, much less a 

 bush rhino, whose horn was almost certain to be a poor 

 one. So we stood and waited, hoping that our most un- 

 welcome neighbour would move away. He stood as silent 

 as we did. Then very slowly I tried to retreat. All in 

 vain, we were so near he must have seen us clearly. He 

 wheeled with a crash, and snorting loudly rushed into us. 

 I could see nothing to shoot at till his horn was within a 

 few yards of the man next to me on my left. Now Dooda, 

 my Somali, was a brave man enough, but in the presence 

 of rhino or lion he became very much excited. He now 

 fell back so violently against my left shoulder that as I 

 threw him off, his rifle cut my hand and I almost fell. 

 Had I done so nothing could have saved us all three from 

 being gored and trampled on. As I straightened up I 

 saw the broad shoulder and lowered horn almost on us. 

 I fired the right barrel of my .450 into the spine, at a dis- 

 tance (afterward measured) of about ten feet. And the 

 rhino fell, an inert mass, without a groan or a kick. I had 

 just time behind the flash of my right barrel, to see a 

 second great head and shoulder following the first. In- 

 deed, so close was the second rush on the first that I could 

 barely pull my left trigger quickly enough. Had I been 

 using a black powder cartridge I could not have seen the 

 second beast till he was upon me. Fortunately the almost 

 unaimed shot took him in the same place as his fellow 

 and he too collapsed. The charge of these two furious 

 animals was so nearly simultaneous that my gunbearer, 

 Dooda, had no idea that there were two, but fancied I had 



