The guns were next placed along a line of gigantic clumps of bulrushes which extended for miles with narrow glades, and thick, matted jungle between. This beat resulted successfully: seven shots were fired, two deer escaped, but two deer and two boars were killed. A curious incident also occurred with a lynx: the beast was evidently wounded by a lucky rifle-shot, and presently, the dogs ran her to bay in a neighbouring mancha. Here one of us who had fired the first shot followed, when, coming unexpectedly upon her in a narrow opening, the lynx being enclosed between man and dogs, made a desperate spring to pass by; the writer, in stepping aside, tripped and fell prostrate on his back, right under the furious beast—never did man rise more promptly! luckily without a scratch, and the next moment the lynx lay gasping out its life on the sand.
After this beat rifles were exchanged for smooth-bores, a line formed, and we shot our way back to the lodge, securing some twenty brace of partridge and other small game, besides another stag, which, all too drowsy, had permitted our line to advance too near ere he sprang from his lair. Shot was quickly exchanged for ball, and as the hart ran broadside on and within one hundred yards of two guns, he was struck in three places, and the dogs soon pulled him down. This was a very old beast, but only carried eight points, the "bay" antlers being entirely wanting, and the double-tops curiously bent inwards. This small-game beat having brought us to the verge of the marisma, we finished a successful day's sport with an hour's flight-shooting, during which five geese and nearly fifty teal and wigeon were brought to bag. The day's results were thus:—4 stags, 2 boar and a lynx, 23½ brace small game, and 54 head of wildfowl.
This evening there was performed the time-honoured ceremony of crowning with the laurel a neophyte in caza mayor. Dark-eyed Petra, the recognized belle of a region where it must be admitted that rivals were few, headed the motley procession of guards, beaters, and miscellaneous folk from the lower regions, and gracefully invested the blushing brows of Santiago, who knelt before her, with a chaplet of flowering arbutus. Then the loving cup passed round, and each drank to the health of the fair donor and the wearer of the crown. There followed a scene of festivity and ordered revels. The spacious court-yard was lit up by a blazing bonfire, and in its lambent light danced stalwart figures arrayed in the picturesque costume of rural Andalucia, while maiden forms alternately revolved and pirouetted in graceful minuet or fandango, keeping time to the guitar, and each accompanying her own movements with the castanets. We were told that a trio of brunettes had travelled the long four leagues from the hamlet of Rocio to our lonely quarters to join the festive scene, but felt too much flattered by the compliment to inquire if such was really the case.
The revelry continued till far on in the night, but for all that, a faithful few were taking a hasty cup of coffee at 5 A.M. preparatory to an early attack on the greylags. A strong west wind howled across the waste, whistling through the cracks of roof and rickety window-frames—favourable omens—and before the sun rose we were far out in the marsh, lying concealed on the furthest projecting points of dry land. Then, as the approaching dawn set the wildfowl in motion, the half-lit skies were serried with hurrying files, and the cold air resounded with the cries of the various ducks and geese. Our luck this morning was hardly so good as expected, but four guns brought in 7 geese, 21 teal, and 8 mallards.
This day again proved a lucky one—several deer and a lynx, besides minor game, being piled on the panniers of the carrier-ponies before night. The lynx was a specially handsome beast, an old male with bushy whiskers, his tawny pelt boldly splashed with dark spots. He was killed by a rifle-ball when going at top speed across a glade. The writer's mind that evening was, nevertheless, tinged with regret. While posted as "point-gun," amidst some lovely but very broken forest ground at a remote corral, I observed an object move slightly among some young pine-scrub in a hollow on my front. It was the antlers of a stag; and soon, by the forest of ivory tips, I perceived they belonged to a hart of no ordinary degree. Presently the owner emerged from the covert and for several seconds stood, fully exposed, at 100 yards, an enormous beast, looking as black as coal against a background of dead yellow flags. He presented a certain shot; but, alas! was still within the beat; and though the stag stood in a slight hollow where rising ground behind rendered the shot perfectly safe, I hesitated to break the rules, and the chance was lost—the grand beast going away wide to the right. The vision of that stag, with his broad and branching head and unnumbered points, his massive frame and glossy coat, haunted me awake and asleep that night and for many another.
A few weeks afterwards, when "still-hunting" with a single Spanish companion in the same district, we came somewhat unexpectedly (it was only 4 P.M.), on a stag quietly splashing through a marsh-belt that separated two patches of forest. The beast was more than half a mile off; but on reaching the place after a detour, we observed him standing under the shade of some trees 400 yards distant. On putting the glass on him, to my intense joy, I recognized my old friend of a month ago—there he stood flicking at the flies, the black stag beyond a shadow of doubt! A nearer direct approach was not possible; but José suggested that by going round in a wide circuit and giving the stag his wind, he would probably move him my way. This manœuvre we proceeded to carry out, and in half an hour's time I had the satisfaction of observing the great beast's first signs of suspicion. He had, meanwhile, laid down; now he rose and moved uneasily away, stopping and sniffing alternately. Then he seemed to have made up his mind, turned deliberately, and slowly trotted in my direction. José had managed the business in a masterly way—never showing. Already the stag had reached a long range shot, when from the nearer, opposite, covert dashed five hinds, which came splashing through the water, right between me and the big stag. How persistently those confounded hinds interposed their useless bodies right between the foresight and its mark! Already the black hart was within thirty yards of the water's edge and the shelter of the forest; when, for a few moments, I got a clear view of his broadside at rather long range, took a full sight with the 100-yard flap up, and fired. Thud! went the conical Paradox ball right on the point of his shoulder, and he pitched forward, stone-dead, in the water. It was a pretty shot, well placed, though rather high, breaking the spine close below the withers. Such shots are, of course, instantly fatal; but are too risky to try for, since they come within an inch or two of a clean miss!