fore them in long shambling strides. They
were not losing ground, however, and this inspired them to greater
speed.

When the chase had been continued for about four miles, and the horses
began to show signs of exhaustion, the pace of the giraffes was also
observed to have become slower. They, also, were distressed by the rate
at which they had been moving.

"One of them is mine," shouted Willem, as he spurred forward in a final
charge.

A huge stallion, exhibiting more signs of distress than the others, had
fallen into the rear. The hunters soon came up with him; and,
separating him from the herd, they fired a volley into his massive body.
Their shots should have brought him down; but, instead of this, they
seemed only to reinvigorate his wearied limbs, and he strode on faster
than ever.

The hunters only paused long enough to reload, and then, resuming the
chase, once more overtook the giraffe.

Another volley was fired, Groot Willem taking aim just behind the
animal's shoulder, the others firing skyward towards its head. The
giraffe stopped suddenly in its tracks, and stood tottering like a
forest-tree about to fall. Its head began waving wildly, first to the
right and then to the left. A shuffle or two of its feet for a time,
enabled it to maintain its equilibrium, and then it sank despairingly to
the earth.

Proudly the hunters dismounted by the side of the now prostrate but once
stately creature,--once a moving monument, erected in evidence of its
Creator's wisdom, but now with its form recumbent upon the carpet of the
plain, its legs kicking wildly in the agonies of death.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

THE CAMELOPARD.

There is perhaps no animal living so graceful in form, more beautiful in
colour, and more stately and majestic in appearance than the camelopard,
now generally known by the French appellation of giraffe. Measuring
eighteen feet from the hoof of the fore leg to the crest of its crown,
it stands, as an American would express it, "The tallest animal in
creation." There is but a single species of the giraffe, and from the
elegance and stateliness of its shape, the pleasing variety and
arrangement of its colours, and the mildness of its disposition, its
first appearance in Europe excited considerable interest.

Although this animal was well known to the ancient Romans, and indeed,
played no inconsiderable part in the gorgeous exhibitions of that
luxurious people, yet, with the ultimate o