ly to conceal his
satisfaction over sure meat.

There were now no zebra anywhere near; but since nobody ever thinks
of omitting any chances in Africa, I sneaked up to the tree and took
a perfunctory look. There stood another, providentially absent-minded,
zebra!

We got that one. Everybody was now happy. The boys raced over to the
first kill, which soon took its dismembered way toward camp. C. and I
carefully organized our plan of campaign. We fixed in our memories the
exact location of each and every bush; we determined compass direction
from camp, and any other bearings likely to prove useful in finding so
small a spot in the dark. Then we left a boy to keep carrion birds off
until sunset; and returned home.

We were out in the morning before even the first sign of dawn. Billy
rode her little mule, C. and I went afoot, Memba Sasa accompanied us
because he could see whole lions where even C.'s trained eye could not
make out an ear, and the syce went along to take care of the mule. The
heavens were ablaze with the thronging stars of the tropics, so we found
we could make out the skyline of the distant butte over the rise of the
plains. The earth itself was a pool of absolute blackness. We could not
see where we were placing our feet, and we were continually bringing up
suddenly to walk around an unexpected aloe or thornbush. The night
was quite still, but every once in a while from the blackness came
rustlings, scamperings, low calls, and once or twice the startled
barking of zebra very near at hand. The latter sounded as ridiculous as
ever. It is one of the many incongruities of African life that Nature
should have given so large and so impressive a creature the petulant
yapping of an exasperated Pomeranian lap dog. At the end of three
quarters of an hour of more or less stumbling progress, we made out
against the sky the twisted treelet that served as our landmark. Billy
dismounted, turned the mule over to the syce, and we crept slowly
forward until within a guessed two or three hundred yards of our kill.

Nothing remained now but to wait for the daylight. It had already begun
to show. Over behind the distant mountains some one was kindling the
fires, and the stars were flickering out. The splendid ferocity of the
African sunrise was at hand. Long bands of slate dark clouds lay close
along the horizon, and behind them glowed a heart of fire, as on a small
scale the lamplight glows through a metal-worked shade. On