Baboe Dalima; or, The Opium Fiend

by M. T. H. Perelaer

“That’s all very fine,” replied Mokesuep, “I can tell you I am getting beastly tired of standing here. A lot of fellows invited for a day’s shooting, when there is nothing to shoot at!”

“The pigs were here all right enough,” said Grenits, “you may depend upon that; I don’t suppose you can blame Verstork if the beaters have allowed them to escape!”

Mokesuep was on the point of making some ill-natured rejoinder when Bang! Bang! Bang! went three rifle shots and interrupted his sneering remarks.

They were the rifles of Verstork, of van Nerekool and of the Wedono. These three were posted at the very mouth of the ravine, and had suddenly caught sight of a greyish indistinct mass of living things rushing towards the opening. Quick as thought, the three had thrown their rifles up to their shoulders and had opened fire upon the advancing herd of swine. The other hunters had, as yet, seen nothing. The rattling and yelling of the beaters seemed to redouble in intensity the moment they heard the first shots fired, and almost drowned the discordant grunts and groans of the pigs as they pressed into the narrow defile. From that moment however, all doubts as to the issue of the day’s sport were at an end.

The three first rifle shots had bowled over the three foremost animals, one of which was a boar of gigantic size, and for a moment stopped the rush of the entire herd. The wounded animals lay on the ground, struggling and fighting, uttering fearful squeaks and striking out right and left with their formidable tusks at those who came behind, thus almost wholly blocking up the narrow opening. That lasted however only for a moment or two, for the noise of the beaters drove the creatures to such a pitch of fury that, in spite of all opposition, they rushed over the bodies of their fallen leaders. But the three men who had first opened fire, had, in those few moments, had time to reload, and an instant after, all the others posted to the right and left caught sight of the game and at once opened fire upon the dense struggling mass of pigs, hardly a single shot being lost. Thereupon a scene of the direst confusion ensued. The wounded animals tumbled over one another uttering groans and squeaks which baffle description. The hindmost ones, still urged on by the terrific noise of the beaters, fought and pushed their way to the front. The sows grimly defended their young and seemed to vent their fury upon the carcases of the dead and wounded, and, in that terrific melée, the bullets of the seven hunters kept plunging with the deadliest effect. The rifled breech-loaders poured shot after shot into the densely packed mass, and every moment the narrow gap became more and more impassible.

That went on for the space of about three minutes, during which the breech-loaders plied their unerring fire.

Presently van Nerekool said to Verstork: “Are we not running the risk of hitting some of the men in the rear?”

“Oh, no,” replied Verstork, “if they have followed my instructions there is no danger whatever. A few yards lower down there is a sharp elbow in the ravine, so that if one of our bullets should happen to miss or to pass through the body of one of these beasts it must bury itself in the walls of rock. You hear—according to agreement, the fellows have already stopped their noise—they are not at all anxious to come to close quarters and to expose themselves to a stray bullet.”

Meanwhile the fire had been kept up with hardly any cessation and with almost the same fatal effect. The grunting herd still was striving to push onward and to get clear of the deadly pass, and again and again the bullets knocked down the foremost, who in their death-struggle, dealt ripping blows all around.

But at length, after having for a while wallowed about hopelessly, a small remnant which still remained unwounded, suddenly headed round, led on by a huge black-coloured boar, and now no longer awed by the beaters, made a headlong charge back into the ravine from which they found it impossible to escape.