the bank of the stream at this spot happened to be rather
steep, so that the rhinoceros, on regaining his feet, experienced
considerable difficulty in the attempts to clamber out, which he made
repeatedly and violently on seeing us emerge from among the bushes.

"Let us separate," said Jack; "it will distract his attention."

"Stay; you have blown out his eye, Ralph, I do believe," said Peterkin.

On drawing near to the struggling monster we observed that this was
really the case. Blood streamed from the eye into which I had fired,
and poured down his hideous jaws, dyeing the water in which he
floundered.

"Look out!" cried Jack, springing to the right, in order to get on the
animal's blind side as it succeeded in effecting a landing.

Peterkin instantly sprang in the same direction, while I bounded to the
opposite side. I have never been able satisfactorily to decide in my
own mind whether this act on my part was performed in consequence of a
sudden, almost involuntary, idea that by so doing I should help to
distract the creature's attention, or was the result merely of an
accidental impulse. But whatever the cause, the effect was most
fortunate; for the rhinoceros at once turned towards me, and thus, being
blind in the other eye, lost sight of Jack and Peterkin, who with the
rapidity almost of thought leaped close up to its side, and took close
aim at the most vulnerable parts of its body. As they were directly
opposite to me, I felt that I ran some risk of receiving their fire.
But before I had time either to reflect that they could not possibly
miss so large an object at so short a distance, or to get out of the
way, the report of both their heavy rifles rang through the forest, and
the rhinoceros fell dead almost at my feet.

"Hurrah!" shouted Peterkin, throwing his cap into the air at this happy
consummation, and sitting down on the haunch of our victim.

"Shame on you, Peterkin," said I, as I reloaded his rifle for
him--"shame on you to crow thus over a fallen foe!"

"Ha, boy! it's all very well for you to say that now, but you know well
enough that you would rather have lost your ears than have missed such a
chance as this. But, I say, it'll puzzle you to stuff that fellow,
won't it?"

"No doubt of it," answered Jack, as he drew a percussion cap from his
pouch, and placed it carefully on the nipple of his rifle. "Ralph will
not find it easy; and it's a pity, too, not to take it home with us, for