After days of wriggling about on the flanks of ostrich, in the front and in the rear, I confided my chagrin to Clarence. He said he had a Plan. I told him I was delighted to know that, and would he unfold it at once? It seems very ridiculous, but just because I could not bag an ostrich the bird seemed to me the be-all and end-all of the trip. I am a woman all over, it seems.
Well, Clarence’s idea was this: Ostrich never eat at night; therefore, if you persistently chase the same ostrich for two or three days consecutively it follows, of course, that the bird must give in sooner or later—sooner, Clarence hoped—from want of food and exhaustion. Or, if a hen ostrich could only be procured—just as though I was not prepared to welcome her—it would not be long before I should have a near view of a cock bird, who would come along with a view to a possible introduction to Miss Ostrich. She was to be tied to a thorn bush behind which I should be ensconced. It did not seem at all a sporting thing to do. Love’s young dream should not be made a potent factor in a deadly business of the kind. Love spells life, not death.
The other idea did not commend itself to me either with any gusto. I had no mind myself to go riding after ostrich as though it were a trophy beyond price. Neither did I want to detail any of the men for the job. It was just as well we did not trouble for—such are the chances of hunting, when the position of things may change from success to failure, from failure to success in the blinking of an eyelid—I suddenly came on two birds—two grey hens—one afternoon as I was returning from a fruitless expedition after a lion that must have left the neighbourhood a week before. One hen was picking the new grass that was everywhere springing up, the other was playing sentry. And very well she did it too, marching up and down with head erect and alert eyes. They had not winded us. We were covered by fairly dense wait-a-bit. The birds, however, were entirely out of range. I was now on foot, and flung myself down, as had Clarence. We then raised ourselves sufficiently to cut as silently as we could a bunch of the awful prickly grass, all mixed with thorn spikes, and though it scratched me like fun, and I heard my poor garments ripping away, I took the screen from Clarence and holding it well in front of me wriggled to the edge of the open country in front of me. I did feel absurd, and how was I to get within range of those knowing birds, all encumbered as I was too, with my weapon and my wait-a-bit? It was wait-a-bit! I took half an hour to crawl a few yards. But the birds still went on picking the grass in the peculiar way they have, taking turns at sentry-go. They had great doubts about this small tuft that had grown up in a day, mushroom-like, and it was only when sentry turned and paced the other way I could progress at all. The bird who was doing the eating did not trouble itself so much. At last, wonderful to relate, I really got within range, and then it was a toss up which bird to choose. I really considered it an embarras de richesse, and told myself that both belonged to me! Sentry presented the best mark, and as she turned and came towards me I drew a bead on her breast and fired. She fell—plop! But her companion simply took a sort of flying run, very quaint to watch, and vanished in the instant on the horizon. This is, I know, a prodigious fuss about shooting an ostrich; but I found them harder to come on and account for than the king of beasts himself. Some of my ostrich found its way to the stock-pot, and a portion was roasted. We were quite unable to get our teeth through it. Cecily said I had undoubtedly shot the oldest inhabitant. The stewed ostrich, after being done to rags, was eatable, but no great treat.
The next day I was taking a breathing space in between moments of stalking an aoul with peculiarly turned horns, a regular freak amongst aoul, when I suddenly heard that weirdest of sounds, the hunting call of a hyæna when the sun is high. I got up and gazed about, and at some distance there flashed into my vision a disabled buck, I could not then tell of what variety, haltingly cantering and lurching along. The hyæna was on his track, running low, but covering the distance between them magically quickly. In shorter time than I can write it the hyæna sprang on to the haunches of the spent buck, and down, down it sank, with head thrown back, into a pitiful heap, the fierce wolf-like creature worrying it at once. I threw up my rifle, in the excitement I had been allowed to approach very near, and the hyæna paid toll. He was a mangy brute of the spotted variety, but the strength of his teeth was amazing. He hung on to a piece of the aoul long after death. I kept his head, but the skin was useless. The buck was an old aoul, evidently in shocking condition and run down generally. He was dead, or I would have put him out of his misery. I took the head for the sake of the horns. These measured on the curves seventeen and a half inches.
Just here Clarence when out spooring, came on an ostrich nest just about to hatch out, and nothing would do but we must go then and there to see it. We penetrated some wait-a-bit and then came on the nest with seven eggs therein. Next we hid ourselves, waited awhile, and had the pleasure of seeing the father ostrich return to the domicile. I don’t know where the mother could be. We never sighted her. Perhaps she was an ostrich suffragette and had to attend a meeting. We did not want to go too near the nest, or go too often, but we could not help being very much interested. Our consideration was quite unnecessary. The eggs hatched out, the broken eggs told the tale, but some prowling jackal or hungry hyæna had called when the parents were away and annexed the entire seven. Housekeeping in the jungle has its drawbacks. It must be really difficult to raise a family.
It was quite strange that Clarence, who was a born shikari, versed in the ways of the wild, and master of the jungle folk, was not at all what I call a safe shot. I never felt that I could depend on his rifle if we got into a tight hole. My uncle says times must have changed, for in their days together Clarence was very reliable with a rifle. But I don’t see why a man, so often out in the jungle, should go off as a shot—rather, one would think, would he improve, like grouse, with keeping.
We did a most amusing stalk one day here. On a Sunday—I know it was a Sunday, because ever since we lost the only almanac we had with us we notched a stick, Crusoe fashion—Cecily and I decided to part company and go our ways alone, and taking our ponies rode off in opposite directions. After some time I tethered my steed and left him for the syce to attend to, and then I mooned along slowly until I must have traversed a mile or so. I lay down awhile, and then a bunch of aoul crossed my front, a Speke’s Gazelle with them but not of them, for he held himself well aloof, and seemed by his very bearing to say he was only with them by accident. The aoul moved on, but the Speke began to feed, and I realised then he carried a head worth having, and I must take it an’ I could. I was out of range, and it meant a careful stalk. I hoped he would not notice me if I wriggled to the next clump of wait-a-bit, which showed the crassness of my ignorance! Of course, he knew something was afoot, and I had to lie still for ages ere I deceived him into passivity again. The ground was like a razor’s edge; small stones and sharp-edged flints cut into my poor knees, but I crept nearer by twenty paces. The sunlight danced again on his shining coat, and all his thoughts were hemmed in now by a little patch of green grass he had come on. He consumed this while I squirmed from point to point, and then with a whisk of his tail he was off again. A brisk run brought him in view once more, and all this time my presence had never really irked him. Aha! I pretty well had him. A few paces more when, wonder of wonders, he saw some danger signal in quite another quarter and dashed away, this time with no halting. He was gone for ever. I rose and stretched myself, when a distant bush of wait-a-bit yielded up another figure, doing the same thing. It was Cecily. And we had both been stalking the self-same buck for hours—spoiling the other’s chances every time. We laughed and laughed, for who could help it?
On our walk back to camp we found the vacated hole of a wart-hog. They dig these entrenchments for themselves, and back into them so that they face any danger that may come—a most wise and sound policy. The hole only just admits piggy; there is not one inch to spare. Living as they do on roots, it can well be understood that the flesh is really much more appetising than that of the home-grown porker. Their only drawback as a welcome addition to our larder was this refusal of the Somalis to have anything to do with pig. I am quite sure they ran this phase of Mahomedanism for all it was worth, thereby saving themselves labour, for I never could see any very strong leanings towards any other teachings of their religion.