“Let’s have a look,” said Mr Burne; and he too focussed his glass. “Why, so it is!” he cried—“just such a one as we used to have upon the pomatum pots. Now, from what gardens can he have escaped?”
The professor burst out laughing merrily.
“It is the real wild animal in his native state, Burne,” he said.
“Then let’s shoot him and take home his skin,” cried Lawrence, preparing to fire.
“You could not kill it at this distance, effendi,” said Yussuf; “and even if you could, it would be a day’s journey to get round to that side and secure the skin. Look!”
The chance to fire was gone as he spoke, for the bear dropped down on all-fours, made clumsily for a pile of rocks, and Mr Preston with his glass saw the animal disappear in a hole that was probably his cave.
“Gone, Lawrence!” said the professor. “Let’s get on.”
“I should have liked to go on after him,” said Lawrence, gazing at the hole in the rocks wistfully; “there’s something so strange in seeing a real bear alive on the mountains.”
“Perhaps we shall see more yet,” said Yussuf, “for we are going into the wildest part we have yet visited. Keep a good look-out high up on each side, and I daresay we shall not go far without finding something.”
“Right, Yussuf,” cried the professor; “there is another of those grand old watch-towers. Look, Burne!—just like the others we have seen planted at the corner where two defiles meet.”