The day was still young when we mounted and set out for the point where Alonzo's report had led us to hope for success. The first covert tried was a strong jungle flanking the main gorge; but this, and a second batida, proved blank, only a few foxes appearing, and a wild cat was shot. Two roe-deer were reported to have broken back, and several mongoose, or ichneumon, were also observed during these drives, but were always permitted to pass. The Spanish ichneumon (Herpestes widdringtoni), being peculiar to the Peninsula, deserves a passing remark; it is a strange, grizzly-grey beast, shaggy as a badger, but more slim in build, with the brightest of bright black eyes, and a very long bushy tail. Owing to his habit of eating snakes and other reptiles (in preference, it would seem, to rabbits, &c.), the ichneumon stinks beyond other beasts of prey. A large black ichneumon happened to be the first game that fell to the writer's rifle in Spain, and was carefully stowed in the mule-panniers—never to be seen again; for no sooner were our backs turned, than the men discreetly pitched out the malodorous trophy.
As we approached our third beat—the main manchas, or thickets of the Boca de la Foz, the "rootings" and recent sign of pig became frequent, and we advanced to our allotted positions in silence, leaving the horses picketed far in the rear.
The line of guns occupied the ridge of a natural amphitheatre, which dipped sharply away beneath us, the centre choked with strong thorny jungle. On the left towered a range of limestone crags, the right flank being hemmed in by huge uptilted rocks, like ruined towers, and white as marble. One of us occupied the centre, the other guarded a pass among these pinnacle rocks on the right. While waiting at our posts we could descry the beaters, mere dots, winding along the glen, 1,500 feet below. The mountain scenery was superb; but no sound broke the stillness save the distant tinkle of a goat-bell; nor was there a sign of life except that feathered recluse, the blue rock-thrush, (in Spanish "solitario,") and far overhead floated great tawny vultures. Ten minutes of profound silence, and then the distant shouts and cries of the beaters in the depths beneath told us the fray had begun.
The heart of the jungle—all lentisk, or mimosa and thorn, interlaced with briar—being impenetrable, the efforts of our men were confined to directing the dogs, and by incessant noise to drive the game upwards. First a tall grey fox stole stealthily past, looked me full in the face and went on without increasing his speed; then a pair of red-legs, unconscious of a foe, sped by like 100-yard "sprinters"—a marvellous speed of foot have these birds on the roughest ground, and well are Spanish by-ways named caminos de perdices! Then the crash of hound-music proclaimed that the nobler quarry was at home. This boar proved to be one of those grizzly monsters of which we were specially in search; his lair a chaotic jumble of boulders islanded amid deepest thicket. Here he held his ground, declining to recognize in his noisy aggressors a superior force; and, though "Moro" and the boar-hounds speedily reinforced the skirmishers of the pack, the old tusker showed no sign of abandoning his stronghold. For minutes, that seemed like hours, the conflict raged stationary; the sonorous baying of the boar-hounds, the "yapping" of the smaller dogs, and shouts of the mountaineers, blended with the howl of an incautious podenco as he received his death-rip—all these formed a chorus of sounds which carried sufficient excitement to the sentinel guns above. Such and kindred moments are worth months of ordinary life.
The actual scene of war lay some half-mile below, hence no immediate issue was probable or expected; then came a crashing of the brushwood on my front, and a three-parts-grown boar dashed straight for the narrow pass where the writer barred the way. The suddenness of the encounter was disconcerting, and the first shot was a miss, the bullet, all but grazing his back and splashing on the grey rock beyond, and time barely remained to jump aside to avoid collision. The left barrel told with better effect: a stumble as he received it, followed by a frantic grunt as an ounce of lead penetrated his vitals, and the beast plunged headlong among the brushwood, his life-blood dyeing the weather-blanched rocks and dark green palmettos. There for a moment he lay, kicking and groaning; but ere the cold steel could administer a quietus, he regained his legs and dashed straight back. Whether that charge was prompted by revenge, or was merely an effort to regain the thickets he had just left, matters not; for a third bullet, at two yards' distance, laid him lifeless.
During this interlude, though it had only occupied a few moments, the main combat below was approaching its climax. The old boar had at length left his hold, and after sundry sullen stands and promiscuous skirmishes with the hounds, he took to flight. Showing first on the centre, he was covered for some seconds by a ·450 express; but not breaking covert, no shot could be fired, and when he at last appeared in view, he was trotting up the stony slopes on the extreme left. Here a rifle-shot at long range broke a fore-leg below the shoulder. This was the turning point: the wounded boar, no longer able to face the hill, wheeled and retreated to the thickets below, scattering the dogs and passing through the beaters at marvellous speed, considering his disabled condition. And now commenced the hue and cry and the real hard work for those who meant to see the end and earn the spoils of war. Soon "Moro's" deep voice told he had the tusker at bay, down in the defile, far below. What followed in that hurly-burly—that mad scramble through brake and thicket, down crag and scree—is impossible to tell. Each man only knows what he did himself—or did not do. We can answer for three; one of these seated himself on a rock and lit a cigarette; the others, ten minutes later, arrived on the final scene—one minus his nether garments and sundry patches of skin, but in time to take part in the death of as grand a boar as ever roamed the Spanish sierras.
First to arrive was Gaspár himself, familiar with every by-way and goat-track on the hills, and nervous for the safety of his hound; but only a few seconds before the denuded Inglés. In a pool of the rock-strewn brook, the beast stood at bay, "Moro's" teeth clenched in one ear and two podencos attacking in flank and rear. Gaspár elected to finish the business with the knife, fixed bayonet-wise, but the horn haft slipped from the muzzle, and a moment later two simultaneous bullets had closed the affair.
One by one the scattered guns turned up: some, who had taken a circuitous course, arriving before others whose ardour had led them to follow direct—so dense was the brushwood and rugged the sierra. A picturesque group stood assembled around the blood-dyed pool with its wild environment and bold mountain background; but rejoicings were tempered by the loss of two of our podencos, one having been killed outright, the other found in a hopelessly wounded condition at the point of the first conflict.