But I couldn’t get Cecily to try our luck again. She said she was suited all right. The fact being that neither of us yearned to make a possible exhibition before our shikari. There was nothing for it. I took my .500 Express, and with Clarence behind me flung myself into the wilderness in as nonchalant a manner as I could assume. I was really very excited in a quiet sort of way, “for now sits Expectation in the air.” It got a trifle dashed after an hour of creeping about with no sort of reward save the frightened rush of the ubiquitous dik-dik.
“Mem-sahib! Mem-sahib!” from the shikari, in excited undertone.
He gripped my arm in silent indication.
“Mem-sahib!” in tones of anguished reproach. “Gerenük!”
We were always Mems to Clarence, who perhaps felt, like the lady at Aden, that if we weren’t we ought to be.
I looked straight ahead, and from my crouching position could make out nothing alive. I gazed intently again. And, yes, of course, all that I looked at was gerenük, two, three, four of them. In that moment of huge surprise I couldn’t even count properly. The intervening bushes screened them more or less, but what a comical appearance they had! how quaintly set their heads! how long their necks! how like giraffes! They moved on, slowly tearing down the thorns as they fed. I commenced to stalk. There was a fine buck with a good head. It was not difficult to distinguish him, as his harem carried no horns.
For twenty minutes or more I crawled along, hoping on, hoping ever, that some chance bit of luck would bring me in fairly clear range, or that the antelope would pause again. Clearly they had not winded me; clearly I was not doing so very badly to be still in their vicinity at all. Now came a bare patch of country to be got over, and I signed to Clarence to remain behind. I was flat on my face, wriggling along the sand. If the antelope were only in the open, and I in the spot where they were screened! The smallest movement now, and... I got to within 120 yards of them when something snapped. The herd gathered together and silently trotted off, making a way through the density with surprising ease considering its thick nature. I got up and ran some way to try and cut them off, dropping again instantly as I saw a gap ahead through which it seemed likely their rush would carry them. It was an uncertain and somewhat long shot, but the chances were I should never see the animals again if I did not take even the small opportunity that seemed about to present itself. I had long ago forgotten the very existence of my shikari. The world might have been empty save for myself and four gerenük. Nervousness had left me, doubts of all kinds; nothing remained save the wonder and the interest and the scheming.
It really was more good luck than good management. I afterwards discovered that the gerenük, or Waller’s gazelle, is the most difficult antelope to shoot in all Somaliland, mostly from their habit of frequenting the thickest country.
This is where the ignoramus scores. It is well known that the tyro at first is often more successful in his stalks, and kills too, for the matter of that, than your experienced shikari with years of practice and a mine of knowledge to draw on. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread—and win too sometimes.
The herd passed the gap, and, as they did so, slowed up a bit to crush through. The buck presented more than a sporting shot, his lighter side showing up clear against his dark red back. I fired. I heard the “phut” of the bullet, and knew I had not missed. I began to tremble with the after excitements, and rated myself soundly for it. I dashed to the gap. The buck—oh, where was he? Gone on, following his companions, and all were out of sight. He was seriously wounded, there was no doubt, for the blood trail was plain to be seen. Clarence joined me, and off we went hot on the track. After a long chase we came on a thickish bunch of thorns, and my quarry, obviously hard hit, bounded out, and was off again like the wind before I had an opportunity to bring up my rifle. It was a long time before he gave me another, when, catching him in fairly open ground, I dropped him with a successful shot at some 140 yards, and the buck fell as my first prize of the trip.