I wearily returned to camp, and having fully explained to Cecily the extent of the disaster, lay on my bed, face down, for ages. The death of the poor hunter could not, strictly speaking, be ascribed to me. I might so easily have been the victim myself, but the horror of it all and the pity of it bothered me as I suppose it would not have done a real sportsman. For, in retailing it now to my uncle, he pooh-poohs my trouble and says it is the fortune of big game hunting. “You hunt big game, big game hunt you,” as the case may be.
Cecily tried in her loving way to comfort me, and the cook made me a soporific in the shape of tea, and the kettle had really boiled. I was very glad to see Clarence back before the light gave out, and hear that the Baron had been buried deeply and far out of the reach of hungry jackals and hyænas.
I spent a fearful night of regrets and recriminations. When pain is acute it is as well to let it bite deep, because the reaction is greater in proportion to the pain. I’m not sure that the old adage about crying over spilt milk isn’t a fraud. It does a woman good to cry, so I wept and wept.
Next morning I thoroughly overhauled my prize so dearly bought. The spoil must have taken some carrying. The head, which I kept entire—I mean without despoiling it of horns—was not so large as I somehow expected from an animal of his bulk. Still, it was big enough in all conscience. The skin appeared like some freshly-peeled fruit, and was of great thickness, though it afterwards shrank in the drying a little.
After the epidermis is removed, the hide, when polished, comes up like clouded amber, and makes the most exquisite top for a table, of which the four feet form the base. In my worry at the time I neglected to measure the rhinoceros as he lay, but in any case we were quite unable to move him. I afterwards took the dimensions of the horns, and the length of the anterior was sixteen inches, the posterior being at seven. I could not settle in that camp again, nor hunt with any happiness. As soon as Cecily was well enough to trek we struck camp, and held on in the direction of Galadi, wherever that might be.
CHAPTER X—WE MEET “THE OPPOSITION”
Therefore be merry, coz; since sudden sorrow
Serves to say thus—some good thing comes to-morrow