They walked quietly across till they reached the place where the rhinoceros had been standing when first hit; and then they stood together snuffing at the blood, which we found next day in quantities on the rocks. I could count their twelve short and stout legs showing in silhouette against the white floor of the river-bed, as they stood motionless, heads bent over the fresh blood, appearing to consult together. I reserved my fire, as I knew they had come to drink, and would give me a better chance, nearer to my shelter, later on. The lionesses then walked slowly across the river-bed in single file, and up a path which ascended the opposite bank, and then they disappeared. But they had not really gone, for from time to time during the next half-hour I could see their round heads raised in silhouette against the sky-line, above the black outline of the bank; they too were watching the pool for game!
I must have dozed off to sleep again, for the moon had swung over a good deal towards the western horizon, when I noticed Géli squatting in a listening attitude, and I heard the steady lapping as of an animal drinking. Géli whispered, “Now, be ready, Sahib!” and slowly raising my head above my screen, pushing the muzzle of my Express forward at the same time, I saw over the barrels the body of a lioness extended, hind quarters flattened against the rock, shoulders high and head down towards me, lapping the water on the farther side of the pool. I did not wait long, but glancing between her upraised shoulders and lowering the muzzle till the white paper on the rib between the barrels had disappeared, I pulled the trigger. My bower was full of smoke, and I ducked under the screen as the report of the rifle was instantly followed by a roar and a splash, and jumping to our feet we just saw the lioness, after having sprung into the centre of the pool to get at us, in the act of raising her dripping body out of the water. No doubt the cold douche had damped her enthusiasm, and she had turned back. Before I could take a sight down the barrels she rushed off across the river-bed, pulling up in the sombre belt of bush on the farther side to roll about and growl. There was nothing more to be done, and though my Somális hinted that she might be hunted by moonlight, I, mindful of our Gebili leopard, preferred to wait till morning before following a wounded lioness into those dark-looking evergreen bushes which cast such uncertain shadows.
I woke up again at sunrise, and without going to camp or tasting food, I at once took up the tracks of the lioness. Her line of retreat was sprinkled with blood. We drew the bushes under the opposite bank very carefully, and then began to ascend the bank by the path, the wind being with us, blowing towards the south. Before we had reached the top we heard several loud roars a few hundred yards beyond, and as we appeared on the higher level the roars were redoubled, issuing from very low, gray, leafless mimósa bush. We followed, keeping to the tracks, and at last saw, eighty yards away, the head of the lioness, held vertically, regarding us intently from the partial concealment of a tuft of grass on the farther side of a glade. She seemed to be on the eve of charging, the black point of her tail twitching nervously behind her head, which bore a very nasty expression. I fired, but missed the small mark. There were now eight of us, some of my men who had come to take away the blankets and other things from the bower having joined us. We stood in an irregular line, fully expecting a charge, and I fired another standing shot at the small, wicked-looking head, my bullet going harmlessly through the grass. Looking under the smoke quickly, I saw her still in the same place, but she was in a greater rage than ever, and kept up a steady low growling. This was my first experience of one of these animals after having been so badly mauled by one, and the situation was becoming therefore highly exciting. I now sat down, and resting both my elbows on my knees, took a very careful shot at her. Her head dropped, showing I had killed her, and we walked up to where she lay.
My first bullet, fired at her while drinking at the water, had struck her in the left forearm and shattered it, accounting for her not having charged; and my last bullet had touched her left cheek; and then, entering perpendicularly, it had expanded and carried away half the brain pan. She was a very fine lioness, the skin being in splendid condition. I told Géli and Hassan to stay and skin her, as I had now to follow up the rhinoceros wounded in the early part of the night. But they begged to be allowed to go with me, so I left two camelmen to do the skinning of the lioness.
Going to camp and hastily swallowing some coffee, we returned to the scene of last night’s adventure, and found the tracks of the rhinoceros plentifully sprinkled with blood. One of the legs appeared to be injured at the shoulder, as the trail where the foot had been dragged along the ground was plainly visible.
At nine o’clock we entered very dense mimósa bushes, of a peculiarly thorny kind, called billeil, and under one of these we saw the rhinoceros, a large cow. She saw us first, however, and charged, getting a pair of four-bore bullets in the chest at rather long range as she came on. Hassan handed me my eight-bore, and I carefully aimed at her shoulder as she picked herself up and came on again; but there was nothing in the rifle, and I had to bolt off to the right, leaving her to select a victim from among my men, who, more active than I, were dancing about the bush yelling out directions to me to fire! When I had got in a couple of cartridges I fired at her right and left; and the second shot, striking obliquely through her shoulders from the front, brought her to the ground, and she died, still retaining the kneeling position after life had left her. Going up to her, I found that last night’s ball from the four-bore had injured her shoulder. She had gone several miles, had taken three four-bore and two eight-bore bullets, and had died game, having chosen the worst kind of bush she could pick out for the final scene. I photographed her as she lay kneeling, leafless thorny mimósas spreading their branches all round her, in this strong, defensive position which she had chosen as her last retreat, the sun casting a shadow in every wrinkle of her thick hide.
Returning to camp, I laid the rhino and lioness heads side by side and photographed them, making a curious and unique picture to remind me of a good morning’s sport before breakfast.
While arranging the bower at midday for our last and fifth vigil, a large spotted hyæna came to drink; and not wishing to disturb lions by firing a rifle, I ran after him, followed by my Somális. We had no weapons but unloaded Sniders, and my knife and double pistol. Running hard to cut him off, I was ahead of the men as he gained the slope of the river bank, and fired both barrels of my pistol, missing him with one barrel and knocking him over with the second. He picked himself up and disappeared over the top of the bank, taking the same path which the wounded lioness had followed in the morning; we, however, gained on him, as he was now crippled by my bullet, and he hid under a low mimósa. The men came up in front, and one of them shoved the butt of a Snider into his face, under the low-spreading branches. He seized hold of this and chewed at it vigorously, while I was able to get round unobserved in his rear, and creeping behind the stems of the bush, to drive my knife mercifully into his ribs. Every hyæna destroyed means a large number of sheep and goats to the good.
At about three o’clock on the afternoon of this day, 20th March, my camp being still at Kuredelli, a large force, consisting of two or three hundred men, mostly naked, and all armed with shield and spear, or bow and quiver, issued from the bush north of camp and came running past, going due south. As they passed the camp they scarcely answered our hurried questions, but my men gathered that they were Abbasgúl Somális belonging to some karias a few miles to the south of us, and that their cattle had just been raided by the Habr-Awal and driven north through the bush of the Haud. My men laughed at them for going naked, but they said they had no time to bother about their tobes; they had come light for running, and only wanted their cattle back. Party after party passed us, and men singly and in couples, all in the same state of nakedness and breathless excitement.