336 SPORT, TRAVEL, AND ADVENTURE 



* Schoot it ! schoot it ! ' he yelled. * Gotfurdamn ! 

 schoot it ! ' When Anfossi and I fired the Deliverance 

 was a hundred yards from the hippo, and the hippo 

 was not five feet from the bank. In another instant 

 he would have been over it and safe. But when we 

 fired he went down as suddenly as though a safe had 

 dropped on him. Except that he raised his head and 

 rolled it from side to side, he remained perfectly still . 

 From his actions, or lack of actions, it looked as though 

 one of the bullets had broken ,his back, and when the 

 blacks saw he could not move they leaped and danced 

 and shrieked. To them the death of the big beast 

 promised much ' chop.' 



But Captain Jensen was not so confident. 'Schoot 

 it ! ' he continued to shout. * We lose him yet ! Got- 

 furdamn ! schoot it 1 ' 



My gun was an American magazine rifle, holding 

 five cartridges. We now were very near the hippo, 

 and I shot him in the head twice, and once, when he 

 opened them, in the jaws. At each shot his head 

 would jerk with a quick toss of pain, and at the sight 

 the blacks screamed with delight that was primitively 

 savage. After the last shot, when Captain Jensen had 

 brought the Deliverance broadside to the bank, the 

 hippo ceased to move. The boat had not reached 

 the shore before the boys with the steel hawser were 

 in the water, the gangplank was run out, and the 

 black soldiers and wood-boys, with their knives, were 

 dancing about the hippo and hacking at his tail. Their 

 idea was to make him the more quickly bleed to death. 

 I ran to the cabin for more cartridges. It seemed 

 an absurd precaution. I was as sure I had the head 

 of that hippo as I was sure that my own was still 



