f movement
belonging to nearly all our feline races, otherwise its skins, the
most valuable prize of the Martial hunter, would yearly be taken at a
terrible cost of life. Two of these creatures were said to be reposing
in a thick jungle of reeds bordering a narrow stream immediately in
our front. The hunters, with Ergimo, now dismounted and advanced some
two hundred yards in front of their birds, directing the latter to
turn their heads in the opposite direction. I found some difficulty in
making my wish to descend intelligible to the docile creature which
carried me, and was still in the air when one of the enormous
creatures we were hunting rushed out of its hiding-place. The nearest
hunter, raising a shining metal staff about three and a half feet in
length (having a crystal cylinder at the hinder end, about six inches
in circumference, and occupying about one-third the entire length of
the weapon), levelled it at the beast. A flash as of lightning darted
through the air, and the creature rolled over. Another flash from a
similar weapon in the hands of another hunter followed. By this time,
however, my bird was entirely unmanageable, and what happened I
learned afterwards from Ergimo. Neither of the two shots had wounded
the creature, though the near passage of the first had for a moment
stunned and overthrown him. His rush among the party dispersed them
all, but each being able to send forth from his piece a second flash
of lightning, the monster was mortally wounded before they fairly
started in pursuit of their scared birds, which--their attention being
called by the roar of the animal, by the crash accompanying each
flash, and probably above all by the restlessness of my own _caldecta_
in their midst--had flown off to some distance. My bird, floundering
forwards, flung me to the ground about two hundred yards from the
jungle, fortunately at a greater distance from the dying but not yet
utterly disabled prey. Its companion now came forth and stood over the
tortured creature, licking its sores till it expired. By this time I
had recovered the consciousness I had lost with the shock of my fall,
and had ascertained that my gun was safe. I had but time to prepare
and level it when, leaving its dead companion, the brute turned and
charged me almost as rapidly as an infuriated elephant. I fired
several times and assured, if only from my skill as a marksman, that
some of the shots had hit it, was surprised to see that at