THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
and the light none of the best, it was necessary to waste as little time as 
possible. Leaving Campbell with the stick and telescope, I cocked the 
rifle and pushed my way ever so gingerly round the mound. What was 
my surprise to see immediately in front, and lying on the same mound 
as myself, the back of the head and horns of a large stag. He was not 
thirty yards away, and directly in line with him, about 100 yards distant, 
was the ten -pointer staring at his rival, and occasionally roaring. Ever 
so carefully I had to raise the rifle to avoid hitting the stag so close at hand, 
and on releasing the trigger I had the satisfaction of seeing my stag cringe 
and walk away slowly after the hinds, and fall on to his knees. The big 
stag that had been lying in front of me made a tremendous spring out 
of his bed and dashed downhill to the left. By this time I was again loaded 
and ran forward and sat down so as to command his retreat, he was now 
going up the hill, and a second glance at his head satisfied me that he had 
better live for a year or two, so I did not fire. After allowing the hinds 
to go quietly away Campbell and I walked up the hill to where the stag 
had fallen, but as we came up to the stricken beast, and were looking at him 
— apparently in death throes — he suddenly sprang to his feet and faced us. 
Then he turned round and dashed down into a gully at full speed. The 
next moment he was racing up the opposite incline, but as he did so I 
fired and broke his back, which caused instant death. On examining the 
dead stag we found that my first bullet had gone right through the top 
of his heart, which, when examined the same evening, was cut right in 
two, the main arteries ruptured by some expanding strip of lead. I 
have in my life killed hundreds of wild animals, and this is the only occa- 
sion I have ever seen one run a short distance, fall, and then be capable 
of rising again and running away. No doubt this stag would have fallen 
dead after going a short distance without a second bullet, but the fact of 
its being capable of getting up again after a heart shot, going down a hill 
and galloping up the other side, is somewhat extraordinary. I mentioned 
this fact to my friend, F. C. Selous, who tells me that he has also once 
had a similar experience. He shot a hartebeest, which ran a short distance 
and fell. As he stood over the dying animal he noticed that the bullet 
was correctly placed in the heart, and as he drew his knife to bleed the 
animal, another antelope came by, which he at once pursued and shot. 
When returning to find the first antelope he was astonished to see no signs 
of it except its tracks. The spoor led away for miles, and the hunter never 
recovered the hartebeest. Before now men, shot through the heart, have 
92 
