28 ADVENTURES OF AN ELEPHANT HUNTER ch. 
to a standstill. Snatching my heavy rifle from 
Simba, I slipped a couple of cartridges into it, and, 
rushing up to the unsteady old warrior, sent a 
bullet through his heart. He toppled over with 
a tremendous crash, and after a few gasps, lay 
still. 
Another glorious day’s sport over ! The thought 
came to me with some faint touch of regret—alas! 
life is brief, and its red-letter days so few and 
far between! Nor had we had too much time 
to spare, for the sun now set in a magnificent flood 
of colour, sending long ribbons and streamers of 
ruddy fire into the deepening blue of the sky, and 
tingeing the bush with a mystery and charm that I 
have often wished I could adequately describe. 
Dragging my weary limbs over to where Simba 
stood, supporting himself against a convenient tree, 
I gave his hand a hearty grip—it was by no means 
the first occasion on which we had faced a life 
and death encounter together—and being utterly 
exhausted, flung myself on the ground. My tracker 
followed suit and for a long while we lay, too 
tired to think or speak or move. During the 
tense excitement of the hunt, we had temporarily 
forgotten our bodily discomforts, but now a swift 
reaction set in, and we became the prey of a 
burning, intolerable thirst! No words can depict 
the awful suffering that the simple want of water 
