The thickness of the aloe jungle here was immense, and to penetrate it was impossible, though constantly we longed to do so, as we heard mysterious rustles n the density.
Our mileage was next to nothing these days, and our marches desperate slow. But a camel won’t be hurried.
We had a day in the ravines, picking up the caravan at a given place, taking Clarence and the second hunt with us. We ventured down a perfect abyss clothed at the bottom in aloe jungle. It was most difficult to keep upright at all, and we took some glorious tosses. The worst thing to contend with was the hunter’s habit of carrying Cecily’s rifle pointing straight at the person who happened to be struggling along in front. It gave me the creeps to watch him. However improbable an accident may be, we know they do happen in the best regulated families. At last, as repeated telling him did no good, we relieved him of his load. He may have had some method in his madness.
We heard a crackle of the aloes, and two koodoo passed in view, going fairly hard. We hadn’t a look in, for they vanished before we realised they were there. We crossed from ravine to ravine, and came on any amount of koodoo spoor, and leopard, the latter some two days old. At last, as we were giving up dispirited, sitting down to recover our breath, a small koodoo bull passed below us, at a distance of some two hundred and thirty yards. It was ridiculous to wait for a slightly improved position, there wouldn’t be one, and as meat was very scarce with us these days, I had a try for him. I really aimed in front of the bull, averaging the pace at which he was travelling, and pressed the trigger. It was written in my Kismet book that I might not do freak shots of this kind with success. The koodoo saved his venison, and a sort of groan went up from the greedy hunters. Two hundred yards is really the limit of a sporting shot or chance, and at that distance you cannot make out the animal’s ear clearly—my invariable test. A down hill shot is the one most likely to fail, because it is so difficult to judge distance horizontally, not vertically.
We had a huge climb for it back to our camp, which we saw perched high above us, our tent looking a mere white speck on the sky-line. Once as we skirted a thick bunch of foliage and undergrowth we heard a leopard “cough.” We pulled up, and listened awhile, but could hear no more of him. Firing the place was no use. The smoke might hang about, there was little air in these ravines, and it might be impossible for us to see clearly. We were really tired, and very unenthusiastic, so let the matter go.
CHAPTER XX—THE LAST PHASE
Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch’d
With rainy marching in the painful field,