igures as one of the
supporters of the royal arms of England that he could hardly credit his
eyes. He counted the creatures, and found that, as the professor had
stated, there were sixteen of them, all apparently full-grown. They
very closely approached the zebra in general shape, but were
considerably larger animals, standing about fourteen hands high. They
were of a beautiful deep cream colour, their legs black below the knee,
and they had short black manes, black switched tails very similar to
that of the gemsbok, and, in the case of four of the animals then in
view, were provided with a single straight black pointed horn projecting
from the very centre of the forehead, just above the level of the eyes.

At length, yielding to the professor's entreaties and remonstrances, the
baronet again sank to his knees and the stalk was resumed.

Soon, however, it became apparent that, from some cause or other, the
animals were growing restless and uneasy. They frequently ceased
feeding suddenly and gazed about them with an anxious, inquiring look,
as though suspicious of but unable to detect the approach of danger, and
instead of steadily cropping at the grass in one particular spot they
would snatch a few hasty mouthfuls and then move on some ten or a dozen
yards. And, as it unfortunately happened, their progress was directly
away from the hunters, so that the latter soon found they were booked
for a very long, tedious, and wearisome task. The stalkers were at
first disposed to regard the uneasiness of the game as due to their own
presence, yet, upon further reflection, this seemed scarcely possible,
for, in the first place, they were all, even to Mildmay and the
professor, tolerably experienced hunters, and were conducting the stalk
in the most approved and sportsmanlike manner, and, in the next place,
they were dead to leeward of the animals, and it was consequently
impossible that the creatures could have scented them. Both Sir
Reginald and the colonel were thoroughly puzzled; and at length they--
almost simultaneously, as it afterwards appeared--arrived at the same
conclusion, namely, that the unicorns were being stalked by somebody or
something besides themselves, or else that a storm was brewing.

In support of the first idea there was no evidence beyond the mere fact
of the animals' restlessness; but the aspect of the heavens soon became
such as to strongly favour the second. Whilst the hunters had been
sedulo