"Gone after a red bush-pig. I think I hear them breaking back."
They heard the hunting cry of the jackal, then a sound of crashing, and an animal, brick-red—a strange hue for the sombre shadows of the forest—darted into view, and seeing them, halted with snout lowered, and the bristling neck curving up grandly to the high shoulders. A moment it stood there facing them, defiant, its little eyes gleaming, its tusks showing white, and the foam dripping from its jaws. A moment, and then it sank to the ground, and was hidden under a writhing mound of coils. Swift as an arrow the python had swooped at the prey, fastened on the neck with its jaws, and then overwhelmed it by the avalanche of its enormous length. There followed a sickening crunch of bones, and next a wild cry from the jackal, repeated by Muata and the river-man.
Mr. Hume advanced with his Express ready, but Muata, running round, begged him not to fire.
"It is the father of the wood-spirits. He took the red pig instead of one of us."
"Not for the want of trying," said Venning. "He nearly had us both,
Muata."
"But he took the pig," said Muata. "It is his hunt, and it means well for us that he took the pig."
"It certainly does; but how are we to get our guns, if we don't shoot him?"
Muata placed his weapon on the ground and advanced. The python had completed its work so far. Two vast coils were round the crushed body of the boar; the head rested on the upmost coil, with the eyes fixed on the intruders, and the rest of the body reached away into the shadows.
Muata advanced with the palms of his hands open, and his eyes downcast, as if he were in the presence of some great chief. Yet he showed no fear, never faltered, but walked up to the guns, picked them up within a foot of the spot where the length of the serpent had formed a loop, and returned. The lidless eyes watched, but not a coil moved.
"It is well," said Muata, gravely, as he returned the rifles. "He means well by us."