By the time we had done another hour, the spoor still holding on, the country was comparatively clear. I was so fatigued and winded I lay down and hardly knew what to do with myself. I sent Clarence and the Baron on a bit to prospect, and had really nearly forgotten their existence in exhausted sleep when they appeared again all tingling with excitement and eagerness, and with many signs and mysterious facial contortions explained the rhino was not far off. A wave of the hand to a far away fastness of thicket showed me its lair, and as we crept closer a pensive munching sound betrayed the occupation of our prey.
Aching all over, I silently crept on. In the stillness I could more plainly hear the crunching of the thorns as they made a meal for the great pachyderm. But I saw nothing, and how I was to penetrate the wait-a-bit with any degree of safety I could not see. Few people would care to meet a rhinoceros at such disadvantage, and I had to add to other drawbacks the fact that I had for safety’s sake to let the hammers of my rifle down ere negotiating such dense undergrowth. It would be highly dangerous to proceed with the rifle cocked, but I wanted it very much cocked indeed on my first introduction to so vast and important an animal. The thing was to circumvent the wood—if I may call the place by so home-like a word—and on reaching one spot where the thorn grew sparser, I decided to penetrate here. I could not bear to leave it longer, and could not wait all day; besides, I prefer to meet a rhino in some place where there is a pretence at cover anyway to trying conclusions with him in a patch of conspicuously open ground.
My men showed no sign of fear, and following me came on as carefully and steadily as ever. Both were armed, inadequately it is to be feared, but the onus of the business was to fall, presumably, on me. At last! In one dazzling minute of surprise I saw the huge lumbering bulk we know as the rhinoceros. I have a bowing acquaintance with his relatives in many zoos, yet he seemed to me a stranger. Surely they never were so colossal, so mighty, so altogether awe-inspiring.
My hands trembled violently. I was for the moment unsteady. It all seemed so impossible I could kill the wondrous brute.
The cocking of the hammers seemed to echo through the jungle. To let him hear us now would present difficulties unthinkable. Beads of perspiration rolled down my forehead, and my heart beat so loudly that I wondered if Clarence heard it. This would never do, so rating myself to myself—a method that never fails to pull me together—I took long, steady, and careful aim at the pachyderm’s shoulder. The frontal shot is never of the slightest use, and I could not get in a heart one. I know now I had no business to fire at all, but my keenness was great, my ignorance greater, and Clarence had not protested once.
I fired! Instantly a noise like the letting off steam of a C.P.R. engine, twice as noisy as any other. The rhino sniffed the air with his huge muzzle, and I could clearly see his prehensile upper lip. In a moment he seemed on us—through us; we scattered as he came. Then I saw what a truly awful business we were in for, and, recognising there must be no delay in getting the sights on him again, I dashed after the animal, who was now about to double on his tracks, and I crawled into the insignificant shelter of a thorn bush to await developments.
The rhino had not as yet realised what was the matter, or quite gathered who his foes were. I fired again, another shoulder shot. This bullet “told” heavily, and the maddened creature, smarting and furious, passed me like the wind and charged like a Juggernaut right over the Baron, who, in meaning to evade the rush, fell into it through the unexpected agility of the brute. A most awful stifled shriek arose as my poor fellow went down. Frightened as I was, I felt I should be everlastingly branded to myself as a coward if I made no attempt to save the man, although I understood how altogether impossible salvation was just then. The pachyderm was giving the prostrate body a number of vicious rams with his horn. I advanced quite close, and the rhino, seeing me, blunderingly charged, passing so near I got the very breath from his nostrils. I luckily managed to get in a heart shot, and yet another. The animal lurched on, and then fell, as a loaded furniture van might, with a terrific crash. But it was not entirely accounted for even yet, and continued to emit little squeals and plough the ground up all about it. Still, I knew it would rise no more, and I gave my rifle to Clarence with a sign to him to do the happy despatch. I went to the fallen Baron, and even now cannot write of the dreadful nature of his wounds without a shudder at the manner of so hideous a death. I was overwhelmed, but Clarence was still imperturbable as he looked back from the great mass that now lay as inert as my poor follower.
There was no use trying anything; the Baron was dead. I did my best to hide my stress of mind from the calm shikari, and endeavoured to think what it was best to do. I wanted to have the body taken back to camp and bury it decently, but, after all, it was a silly idea enough, and a mere relic of home associations. The man had to be buried, so why not do it where he fell? Then the rhinoceros, with all its value in hide and horn, lay there to be dealt with. The only way seemed to be to return to the spot where we left the camel, let Clarence lead two men to the scene of the débâcle, and then I would proceed to camp and order out further assistance.
We covered the poor Baron with cut thorns, which seemed a slight barrier of protection for his body; and the thought of the inroads of some beasts of prey made me hurry and almost run back through the awful way we had come so short a time ago. Our passage had cleared it a very little, and my mind was so much occupied with the catastrophe that it did not seem very long before we reached the philosophic camel and the help of which we stood in need.
One camel-man I instructed to return to camp with his charge; the other and my syce I detailed to go back with Clarence to attend to the Baron and the rhino. I got on my own pony, leading the others, and going as hard as I could under such harassing conditions, I returned an hour or so after with a few men, whom I led to the edge of the thick jungle into which I heartily wished I had never penetrated, and explained to the leader the exact location of the scene of the disaster. I arranged that a rifle should be fired three times to acquaint me of his meeting with Clarence at the awful spot. For myself, I was too utterly done to take on the journey down that path again. I sat and waited for the signal, and felt a little easier in my mind as I heard the welcome one, two, three.