CHAPTER XVII—TREE CLIMBING
Do not give dalliance too much the rein
The Tempest
When out early one morning a green oasis tempted me to leave the sandy waste and ramble in among the depths of the aloes, creep in and out of the festoons of armo, and hunt for anything that might be astir. Choosing the part where the bushes seemed most willing to admit us, we crept in—a hunter and I—he of the Cook’s Guide turn of mind. Parting the creepers as we went, we found it easier than we had thought to penetrate the density.
On almost every branch a chameleon lay basking, dead to all appearances save for the eternal wakefulness of their eyes. In a glade where the grass grew high there was a whirr and a rush. Some small animal was startled. But we saw nothing. The hunter prepared to account for it, but I would have none of it, and silenced him with a look. I was there to read the book of the wild for myself, not to have it read aloud.
A tree snake dropped from his low perch on a thorn bush, and wriggled away in the thicket. Two distinct lines of brown marked him, and that was all I saw. He gave me “creeps,” and I turned away in an opposite direction. Sometimes a bit of thorn would hold me lovingly, and all my blandishments could not make it let me go. I only obtained freedom with leaving a piece of my coat as tribute. Vulturine guinea-fowl ran at the sight of us, raising their naked necks and setting off at great speed to make safety. They are beautiful birds, and the prismatic colours of the feathers show up against the green of the armo very distinctly. Doves cooed above us, but I could not catch a glimpse of one. As we neared the middle of the oasis we came on a few scattered half-eaten bones—a dead lesser koodoo. He had furnished a meal for a lion, doubtless, and later for one of his own people. One or two varieties of antelope are very fond of nibbling dry white bones.
We took a turn to the right, and on the instant a beautiful lesser koodoo took a gigantic leap over an in-the-way bunch of aloe scrub. He disappeared into a thicket and I stood motionless listening. So I suspect did my koodoo. All was still, but only for a moment. The amateur Cook’s Guide got entangled somehow or other with a trailing creeper, and to my complete horror and amazement let off my .500 Express which he was carrying. He must have been holding it in very unskilled fashion. The bullet missed my head by a couple of inches. I felt the whiz of it and heard it ricochet into the trees. I was so unnerved I sat down and thought things out. My hunter was quite oblivious to any shock I might have received, because the stock of the rifle had hit him hard somewhere—I was too vexed to inquire the exact location—and he bewailed his misfortune. I ordered him to go home to camp and leave me, which he did with alacrity. After about half an hour my trembling fit passed. It was very cowardly to be so upset, but I hate unknown and quite unforeseen dangers, and an unsuspected bullet at close quarters demoralises me.
I sat on quietly, and the bush began to stir and take up its daily round again, forgetting the demon crash that had disturbed its slumbers. A little red velveteen spider ran speedily up an armo leaf, tumbled over the edge and suspended himself on a golden wire. Jerk! jerk! Lower he went, then up again. Two bars of his house completed, when alas, a great fly of the species that haunted our trophies, flew right across and smashed the spider-house to nothing. The velveteen spider sat on a leaf—fortunately he had made safety ere the Juggernaut passed along—and meditated, but only for a moment. He was a philosopher and knew all about the “Try, try, try again” axiom. Over he hurled himself on another golden thread and laid another criss-cross foundation-stone. And there I left him because I wanted to penetrate farther.
How could I manoeuvre a big antelope now if I shot one, seeing that my hunter had left me? Was it not counting my chickens? Yes, but that is what one does all the time in big game shooting!