“Stasch! Stasch! Nothing has happened to me! Only look and see! Nothing has happened to me! Little Stasch! Dear Stasch!”
It was some time before Stasch recovered his composure and calmness. Soon after Kali arrived on the scene; he had heard a shot near the camp, and knowing that Bwana Kubwa never shot in vain, he immediately brought a horse to carry away the game. But when the young negro saw the slain beast he suddenly drew back and his face became ashen-gray.
“Wobo!” he screamed.
Not until now did the children approach the stiffening carcass, for Stasch as yet had no definite idea of the kind of beast he had shot. At first sight the boy thought it might be a very large “serval,”[[34]] but on taking a nearer view he knew that he was mistaken, for the dead beast was even larger than a leopard. Its golden-yellow skin was dotted with chestnut-brown spots; but its head was narrower than that of a leopard and resembled somewhat that of a wolf; its legs were longer, its paws broader, and its eyes enormous. One of them had been completely torn away by the bullet; the second still stared at the children as if out of a chasm, immovable, frightful. Stasch felt sure that it was some species of panther which zoologists knew as little about as geographers did of the Basso-Narok Sea.
Kali continued to gaze with terror at the outstretched animal, repeating in an undertone, as if afraid to awaken it:
“Wobo!—The Great Man has killed a wobo!”
But Stasch, turning to the girl, laid his hand on her little head, as if he wanted to make sure that wobo had not stolen her, and said:
“Do you see, Nell, do you see that even if you were quite grown up, you ought not to go alone in the jungle?”
“You are right, Stasch,” answered Nell with a penitent expression. “But may I go with you or with King?”
“Tell me, how did this happen? Did you hear it approach you?”