TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 285 
life. Any easily avoided disaster is accepted in this 
fashion. 
The head-man gave ns all the particulars. A 
leopard had indeed entered the kavia, killed a sheep, 
and then left the carcase. We begged for the remains, 
and for a consideration got them. Clarence bestowed 
them at the foot of the rise in open ground by a brake 
of aloes and thick cover. The men set about con- 
structing a machan in the jungly place, and kept 
guard till sunset, when Cecily and I took the job on. 
We climbed into our refuge ; it was intensely rickety, 
and rocked every time we made the least movement. 
I was no more enamoured of this sort of sport than 
before, and suppose we were doing it because we felt 
the trip being so nearly over it was foolish now to miss 
any chance whatever. For once in a way we were 
both rather uninterested, a fatal frame of mind in this 
sort of an affair. We were bitterly cold, and I could 
hardly hold my rifle at all. Hours seemed to drag 
along, minutes really. I had to strike a light, whatever 
the consequence, to ascertain the time. It was 
1 a.m. Oh, for bed and this sort of sport at an end ! 
Another weary silence. I slept, I believe, with one 
eye open. Then an ominous rustle, and a lightning 
whirr and rush, succeeded by a blank silence again. 
Whatever had happened now ? We listened and 
gazed attentively, but no more sounds reached our 
straining ears. Over all the jungle brooded a stillness 
that could almost be felt. Then Cecily, whose sight 
is better than mine, said it was plain to be seen even 
in the blackness that surrounded us that the carcase of 
