I had my supper and turned in, but I could not sleep for annoyance at losing the gemsbuck. Could I, I wondered, with the sun shining full in my eyes, have fired a little too high, and instead of hitting the gemsbuck at the root of the tail, have struck it in the back of the head or neck? Had I done so it would, of course, have fallen to the ground as if struck by lightning, and I might then have galloped close past it without seeing it, both because I was looking on ahead through the trees and because my sight was still blurred by the sun. Anyhow, I thought I would go back and solve the mystery the next morning.
It must have been about ten o'clock at night when my dogs began to bark, and presently I heard some one ride up to my waggon. It proved to be Count von Schweinitz, a German gentleman whom I had met a short time before, and who, I knew, was about to proceed on a shooting trip to Mashunaland. He told me that he had left his waggons some twenty miles away at Batlanarma vley, and ridden on, as he knew I was not far ahead, and he wanted to have a couple of days' hunting with me.
I soon got my visitor something to eat, and whilst a sleeping place was being prepared for him, told him how I had lost a fine gemsbuck through firing at it with the setting sun full in my eyes. Count von Schweinitz wanted particularly to see some gemsbucks and hartebeests, as he knew that these animals were not to be got in Mashunaland. I informed him that I thought we would be sure to find hartebeests, but could not answer for gemsbucks, though I told him that if we could find the one I had wounded and lost, I hoped he would take its head.
At daylight the next morning we rode out with four of my Kafirs, and took my horse's track to where I had galloped after the wildebeest. Then I took a sweep round and cut the tracks of the gemsbuck, intermingled with those of my pursuing horse, and following them up, came on the beautiful antelope, lying dead just on the edge of the thorn trees where I had last seen it. It was just as I had surmised. My last bullet had gone a little high, and striking the gemsbuck in the back of the neck, had shattered the vertebrae and killed it instantly. It had, of course, fallen all of a heap in its tracks, and, impossible as it may seem, I had galloped past, and within three yards of the dead antelope, without seeing it. This, of course, could not have happened had not my sight been blurred for the moment by the glare of the sun. My horse probably saw the gemsbuck fall, and so did not shy as it passed it.
My first bullet, I found, had entered the gemsbuck's right flank, and ranging forwards, must have inflicted a wound which by itself would soon have proved fatal. The dead antelope carried a remarkably fine pair of horns, massive, widespread, and symmetrical. They measured 3 feet 5 inches, which is quite an unusual length for the horns of a bull gemsbuck, which are, as a rule, much shorter than those of the cow's. The horns of the latter seldom measure more than 3 feet 6 inches, though they have been known to reach a length of within half an inch of 4 feet.
After cutting off the head of the gemsbuck, which I gave to Count von Schweinitz, and leaving two boys to cut up the meat, we rode off to look for hartebeests. We soon found a small herd of these animals, and shot two of them, a bull and a cow. I then sent one of the two natives who had accompanied us to my waggon for four pack donkeys, and with their help carried all the meat, both of the gemsbuck and the hartebeests, to camp, which we reached early in the afternoon.