Hunting the Lions - Robert Michael Ballantyne

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advance of them when he came to a dense thicket which was black as midnight, and so still that the falling of a leaf might have been heard. Tom Brown surveyed the thicket quietly for a few seconds, and observing the marks of some large animal on the ground, he beckoned to the Caffre who carried his spare double-barrelled gun. Up to this date our hero had not shot any of the large denizens of the African wilderness, and now that he was suddenly called upon to face what he believed to be one of them, he acquitted himself in a way that might have been expected of a member of the Brown family! He put off his shoes, cocked his piece, and entered the thicket alone—the natives declining to enter along with him. Coolly and very quietly he advanced into the gloomy twilight of the thicket, and as he went he felt as though all the vivid dreams and fervid imaginings about lions that had ever passed through his mind from earliest infancy were rushing upon him in a concentrated essence! Yet there was no outward indication of the burning thoughts within, save in the sparkle of his dark brown eye, and the flush of his brown cheek. As he wore a brown shooting-coat, he may be said to have been at that time Brown all over!

      He had proceeded about fifty yards or so when, just as he turned a winding in the path, he found himself face to face with an old buffalo-bull, fast asleep, and lying down not ten yards off. To drop on one knee and level his piece was the work of an instant, but unfortunately he snapped a dry twig in doing so. The eyes of the huge brute opened instantly, and he had half risen before the loud report of the gun rang through the thicket. Leaping up, Tom Brown took advantage of the smoke to run back a few yards and spring behind a bush, where he waited to observe the result of his shot. It was more tremendous then he had expected. A crash on his right told him that another, and unsuspected, denizen of the thicket had been scared from his lair, while the one he had fired at was on his legs snuffing the air for his enemy. Evidently the wind had been favourable, for immediately he made a dead-set and charged right through the bush behind which our hero was concealed. Tom leaped on one side; the buffalo-bull turned short round and made another dash at him. There was only the remnant of the shattered bush between the two; the buffalo stood for a few seconds eyeing him furiously, the blood streaming down its face from a bullet-hole between the two eyes, and its head garnished with a torn mass of the bush. Again it charged, and again Tom, unable to get a favourable chance for his second barrel, leaped aside and evaded it with difficulty. The bush was now trampled down, and scarcely formed a shadow of a screen between them; nevertheless Tom stood his ground, hoping to get a shot at the bull’s side, and never for a single instant taking his eye off him. Once more he charged, and again our hero escaped. He did not venture, however, to stand another, but turned and fled, closely followed by the infuriated animal.

      A few yards in front the path turned at almost right angles. Tom thought he felt the hot breath of his pursuer on his neck as he doubled actively round the corner. His enemy could neither diverge from nor check his onward career; right through a fearfully tangled thicket he went, and broke into the open beyond, carrying an immense pile of rubbish on his horns. Tom instantly threw himself on his back in the thicket to avoid being seen, and hoped that his native followers would now attract the bull’s attention, but not one of them made his appearance, so he started up, and just as the disappointed animal had broken away over the plain, going straight from him, he gave him the second barrel, and hit him high up on the last rib on the off side, in front of the hip. He threw up his tail, made a tremendous bound in the air, dashed through bush-thorns so dense and close that it seemed perfectly marvellous how he managed it, and fell dead within two hundred yards.

      Note. If the reader should desire fuller accounts of such battles, we recommend to him African Hunting, a very interesting work, by W.C. Baldwin, Esquire, to whom, with Dr Livingstone, Du Chaillu, and others, I am indebted for most of the information contained in this volume,—R.M.B.

      The moment it fell the natives descended from the different trees in which they had taken refuge at the commencement of the fray, and were lavish in their compliments; but Tom, who felt that he had been deserted in the hour of need, did not receive these very graciously, and there is no saying how far he might have proceeded in rebuking his followers (for the Brown family is pugnacious under provocation) had not the major’s voice been heard in the distance, shouting, “Hallo! look out! a buffalo! where are you, Tom Brown, Wilkins?”

      “Hallo!” he added, bursting suddenly into the open where they were standing, “what’s this—a—buffalo? dead! Have ’ee killed him? why, I saw him alive not two minutes—”

      His speech was cut short by a loud roar, as the buffalo he had been in chase of, scared by the approach of Wilkins, burst through the underwood and charged down on the whole party. They fled right and left, but as the brute passed, Wilkins, from the other side of the open, fired at it and put a ball in just behind the shoulder-blade. It did not fall, however, and the three hunters ran after it at full speed, Wilkins leading, Tom Brown next, and the major last. The natives kept well out of harm’s way on either side; not that they were unusually timid fellows, but they probably felt that where such able hands were at work it was unnecessary for them to interfere!

      As the major went racing clumsily along—for he was what may be called an ill-jointed man, nevertheless as bold as a lion and a capital shot—he heard a clatter of hoofs behind him, and, looking over his shoulder, observed another buffalo in full career behind. He stopped instantly, took quick aim at the animal’s breast, and fired, but apparently without effect. There chanced to be a forked tree close at hand, to which the major rushed and scrambled up with amazing rapidity. He was knocked out of it again quite as quickly by the shock of the tremendous charge made by the buffalo, which almost split its skull, and rolled over dead at the tree-root, shot right through the heart.

      Meanwhile Tom Brown and the lieutenant had overtaken and killed the other animal, so that they returned to camp well laden with the best part of the meat of three buffaloes.

      Here, while resting after the toils of the day, beside the roaring camp-fires, and eating their well-earned supper, Hicks the trader told them that a native had brought news of a desperate attack by lions on a kraal not more than a day’s journey from where they lay.

      “It’s not far out o’ the road,” said Hicks, who was a white man—of what country no one knew—with a skin so weather-beaten by constant exposure that it was more like leather than flesh; “if you want some sport in that way, I’d advise ’ee to go there to-morrow.”

      “Want some sport in that way!” echoed Wilkins in an excited tone; “why, what do you suppose we came here for? Of course we’ll go there at once; that is, if my comrades have no objection.”

      “With all my heart,” said the major with a smile as he carefully filled his beloved pipe.

      Tom Brown said nothing; but he smoked his pipe quietly, and nodded his head gently, and felt a slight but decided swelling of the heart, as he murmured inwardly to himself, “Yes, I’ll have a slap at the lions to-morrow.”

      Chapter Three.

      In which Great Deeds are Done, and Tom Brown has a Narrow Escape

      But Tom was wrong. Either the report had been false, or the lions had a special intimation that certain destruction approached them; for our hunters waited two nights at the native kraal without seeing one, although the black king thereof stoutly affirmed that they had attacked the cattle enclosures nearly every night for a week past, and committed great havoc.

      One piece of good fortune, however, attended them, which was that they unexpectedly met with the large party which the major had expressed his wish to join. It consisted of about thirty men, four of whom were sportsmen, and the rest natives, with about twenty women and children, twelve horses, seventy oxen, five wagons, and a few dogs; all under the leadership of a trader named Hardy.

      Numerous though the oxen were, there were not too many of them, as the reader may easily believe when we tell him that the wagons were very large, clumsy, and heavily laden,—one of them, besides other things, carrying a small boat—and that it occasionally required the powers of twenty oxen to drag one wagon up some of the bad hills they encountered on the journey to the Zulu country.

      The four sportsmen, who were named respectively Pearson, Ogilvie, Anson, and Brand, were overjoyed at the addition to the party of Tom Brown and his companions, the more so that Tom was

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