nocked the buffalo down. I knew that he could
not get up any more, because he was now injured fore and aft, so
notwithstanding his terrific bellows I scrambled round to where he was.
There he lay glaring furiously and tearing up the soil with his horns.
Stepping up to within two yards of him I aimed at the vertebra of his
neck and fired. The bullet struck true, and with a thud he dropped his
head upon the ground, groaned, and died.

"This little matter having been attended to with the assistance of
Gobo, who had now found his feet, I went on to extricate our unfortunate
companion from the aloe bush. This we found a thorny task, but at last
he was dragged forth uninjured, though in a very pious and prayerful
frame of mind. His 'spirit had certainly looked that way,' he said,
or he would now have been dead. As I never like to interfere with true
piety, I did not venture to suggest that his spirit had deigned to make
use of my eight-bore in his interest.

"Having despatched this boy back to the camp to tell the bearers to come
and cut the buffalo up, I bethought me that I owed that rhinoceros a
grudge which I should love to repay. So without saying a word of what
was in my mind to Gobo, who was now more than ever convinced that Fate
walked about loose in Wambe's country, I just followed on the brute's
spoor. He had crashed through the bush till he reached the little glade.
Then moderating his pace somewhat, he had followed the glade down its
entire length, and once more turned to the right through the forest,
shaping his course for the open land that lies between the edge of the
bush and the river. Having followed him for a mile or so further, I
found myself quite on the open. I took out my glasses and searched
the plain. About a mile ahead was something brown--as I thought, the
rhinoceros. I advanced another quarter of a mile, and looked once
more--it was not the rhinoceros, but a big ant-heap. This was puzzling,
but I did not like to give it up, because I knew from his spoor that he
must be somewhere ahead. But as the wind was blowing straight from me
towards the line that he had followed, and as a rhinoceros can smell you
for about a mile, it would not, I felt, be safe to follow his trail
any further; so I made a detour of a mile and more, till I was nearly
opposite the ant-heap, and then once more searched the plain. It was no
good, I could see nothing of him, and was about to give it up and start
after some oryx I sa