We had scarcely established ourselves in our place of concealment when a beautiful zebra mare, accompanied by her foal, appeared coming toward us at a trot, which circumstance, taken in conjunction with the laboured action of the animals, clearly indicated that both were in the very last stage of exhaustion; and indeed the fugitives had only gone a few yards past us when the mare stumbled heavily, recovered herself with difficulty, and then, with a scream that marked the extremity of her terror and despair, crashed heavily to the ground, where, after an ineffectual effort to scramble to her feet again, she lay flat on her side, panting heavily and with her tongue protruding. And as the mare fell the foal pulled up short beside her and stood, with lowered head and legs wide apart, trembling so violently that the action was visible even to us nearly a hundred yards away.
By this time the yapping sounds had become so loud that we knew the pack must be close at hand, and a moment later they swept into view, some thirty or so in number; and as they sighted the prostrate zebra, with her foal standing beside her, their yapping changed to a howl of exultation, which caused the mare again to make an ineffectual effort to scramble to her feet, while the foal hobbled away a yard or two, but returned to his dam when he saw that she was unable to rise. It was a rather pathetic sight to see those two beautiful animals awaiting destruction at the fangs of the dogs, and, moved suddenly by a sense of pity, I pressed my heels to Prince’s flanks, and, calling Piet to follow, rode forward into the open.
At the sight of two mounted figures advancing to bar their progress the pack suddenly pulled up in a bunch and stood panting, with their tongues lolling out and the foam dripping from their jaws, for the wild dog does not love to meet man, especially a white man, at least in daylight. As the pack bunched themselves together, uncertain whether to continue their advance or to retire, but evidently very strongly impelled by the sight of the fallen zebra to do the former, it offered a target so tempting that I was quite unable to resist it; and, leaping lightly from the saddle, I ran forward a pace or two and, sinking upon one knee, levelled my rifle and fired right into the thick of the bunch. The range was only about four hundred yards, and while the sharp, whip-like report of the piece was still echoing along the side of the range of hills in front of me I heard the clap of the bullet, and, as the smoke drifted away, saw that one dog was down, dead, while a second was struggling feebly on the ground, and a third, with a broken leg, was making the welkin ring with his howls of anguish.
At the flash and report of the piece some eight or ten of the dogs in the rear of the pack wheeled sharply round, and, with their tails tucked tightly between their legs, beat a hasty retreat along the back trail, uttering sharp yelps of terror as they went; but the remainder of the pack stood its ground, staring at us as though wondering what new kind of animals we could be who had the power of slaying from a distance. There was one big gaunt brute, however, apparently the leader of the pack, who kept his flaming eyes fixed upon the zebras, and as the smoke of the discharge cleared away I saw him slink out from the rest of the pack in a crouching attitude, with bared fangs, as though meditating a dash at the gasping mare.
“The gun—quick!” I ejaculated to Piet, who retained his saddle and sat motionless as a statue, watching intently; and at the word he held out to me the loaded elephant gun, and received from me the empty rifle in its stead. A moment later the heavy piece roared out its death message, and the big brute who had separated himself from the rest of the pack sprang with a convulsive twist into the air and fell stone-dead.
“Now,” said I, as I sprang into the saddle, “unclip one of your stirrups, Piet, and we will see if we cannot beat off the brutes with our stirrup irons!” And as I spoke the words we urged our horses to a gallop, unclipping our off-side stirrups as we went, and charged right down between the pack and the zebras, wheeling upon the dogs as soon as we had cut them off from the mare and foal. Then, swinging the loose stirrups round our heads, we thundered down upon the discomfited pack, uttering loud yells as we went. The brutes stood irresolute for a few seconds longer, but presently, when we wheeled directly toward them, they turned tail and bolted by the way that they had come, yelping with fear as they went. But I was determined to inspire them with a wholesome feeling of terror now that I had begun; therefore as soon as we had overtaken the rearmost members of the flying pack we checked our horses just sufficiently to keep pace with them, and then proceeded to belabour the brutes soundly with our stirrup irons, the howls of anguish to which the belaboured ones gave vent serving to add wings to the feet of the rest. We chased the howling mob a good two miles—by which time its members were crazy with fear—and then drew rein, feeling convinced that they would give us no further trouble. Then we turned and cantered back along the way by which we had come.
As we approached the spot where the zebra mare had fallen we saw, somewhat to our astonishment, that the poor beast still lay where we had left her, with the foal standing over her, smelling at her and licking her face; and it then occurred to me that possibly we might be able to capture the foal. I therefore spoke a word to Piet, and we pulled our horses back to a walk. As the sound of our approaching hoofs reached her ears, the mare made a scrambling effort to rise, and all but succeeded, only to sink again to the earth with a moan, while the foal threw up his head, galloped stiffly away a few yards, and then returned, standing close to his prostrate parent’s head and gazing at us with enquiring eyes, his ears pointed forward, his nostrils twitching, and his upper lip slightly raised, revealing his teeth in a somewhat threatening manner.
At a distance of about seven or eight yards we reined up and dismounted, moving slowly and with deliberation, in order that we might frighten the animals as little as possible. Then, throwing our reins to the ground, we walked quietly up to the pair and stood looking down at the mare, who still lay upon her left side, with her limbs stretched stiffly out, her sides heaving with a slow, laboured movement, her tongue hanging from her mouth, her glassy eyes rolling in their sockets, and her breath coming in heavy gasps.
“She’s dyin’, baas,” remarked Piet, “dyin’ of tiredness and thirst! She mus’ have run a long, long way when she too tired to get up at sight of we.”
Yes, there was no doubt about it, the poor beast was at her last gasp; and unless something were quickly done to relieve her she would assuredly die. Piet and I were both wearing soft, wide-brimmed felt hats, of sufficient capacity to contain about three pints of water and to retain it without very much leakage for several minutes, while there was a stream within twenty yards of the spot where we stood. It was possible that we might yet save the beautiful creature’s life if we bestirred ourselves.