ise, a kind of murmur far away. It
grew, it developed.

It sounded like a thousand sticks tapping upon something hard, very
faintly. It continued to grow, and I knew the sound for that of the
beating hoofs of animals galloping. Then there were isolated noises,
very faint and thin; they might be shouts; then something that I could
not mistake--shots fired at a distance. So the business was afoot; the
cattle were moving, Saduko and my hunter were firing. There was nothing
for it but to wait.

The excitement was very fierce; it seemed to consume me, to eat into
my brain. The sound of the tapping upon the rocks grew louder until
it merged into a kind of rumble, mixed with an echo as of that of very
distant thunder, which presently I knew to be not thunder, but the
bellowing of a thousand frightened beasts.

Nearer and nearer came the galloping hoofs and the rumble of bellowings;
nearer and nearer the shouts of men, affronting the stillness of the
solemn night. At length a single animal appeared, a koodoo buck that
somehow had got mixed up with the cattle. It went past us like a flash,
and was followed a minute or so later by a bull that, being young and
light, had outrun its companions. That, too, went by, foam on its lips
and its tongue hanging from its jaws.

Then the herd appeared--a countless herd it seemed to me--plunging up
the incline--cows, heifers, calves, bulls, and oxen, all mixed together
in one inextricable mass, and every one of them snorting, bellowing,
or making some other kind of sound. The din was fearful, the sight
bewildering, for the beasts were of all colours, and their long horns
flashed like ivory in the moonlight. Indeed, the only thing in the least
like it which I have ever seen was the rush of the buffaloes from the
reed camp on that day when I got my injury.

They were streaming past us now, a mighty and moving mass so closely
packed that a man might have walked upon their backs. In fact, some of
the calves which had been thrust up by the pressure were being carried
along in this fashion. Glad was I that none of us were in their path,
for their advance seemed irresistible. No fence or wall could have saved
us, and even stout trees that grew in the gully were snapped or thrust
over.

At length the long line began to thin, for now it was composed of
stragglers and weak or injured beasts, of which there were many. Other
sounds, too, began to dominate the bellowings of the animals, those
of t