It wanted yet an hour or two of sunset. The lions still sat squatted on the grass, closely observed by the hunters.
All at once the eyes of the latter became directed upon a new object. Slowly approaching over the distant plain, appeared two strange animals, similar in form, and nearly so in size and colour. Each was about the size of an ass, and not unlike one in colour,—especially that variety of the ass which is of a buff or fulvous tint. Their forms, however, were more graceful than that of the ass, though they were far from being light or slender. On the contrary, they were of a full, round, bold outline. They were singularly marked about the head and face. The ground colour of these parts was white, but four dark bands were so disposed over them as to give the animals the appearance of wearing a headstall of black leather. The first of these bands descended in a streak down the forehead; another passed through the eyes to the corners of the mouth; a third embraced the nose; while a fourth ran from the base of the ears passing under the throat—a regular throat-strap—thus completing the resemblance to the stall-halter.
A reversed mane, a dark list down the back, and a long black bushy tail reaching to the ground, were also characters to be observed. But what rendered these animals easily to be distinguished from all others was the splendid pair of horns which each carried. These horns were straight, slender, pointing backwards almost horizontally. They were regularly ringed till within a few inches of their tips, which were as sharp as steel spits. In both they were of a deep jet colour, shining like ebony, and full three feet in length. But what was rather singular, the horns of the smaller animal—for there was some difference in their size—were longer than those of the larger one! The former was the female, the latter the male, therefore the horns of the female were more developed than those of the male—an anomaly among animals of the antelope tribe, for antelopes they were. The young yägers had no difficulty in distinguishing their kind. At the first glance they all recognised the beautiful “oryx,” one of the loveliest animals of Africa, one of the fairest creatures in the world.
Chapter Five.
Lions Stalking the Gemsbok.
On seeing the “gemsbok”—for by such name is the oryx known to the Cape colonists—the first thought of the young yägers was how they should kill or capture one of them. Beautiful as these creatures looked upon the plain, our hunters would have fancied them better on the spit—for they well knew that the venison of the gemsbok is delicious eating—not surpassed by that of any other antelope, the eland perhaps excepted.
The first thought of the yägers, then, was a steak of gemsbok venison for dinner. It might throw their dinner a little later, but it would be so much of a better one than dry biltong, that they were willing to wait.
The slices of jerked meat, already half-broiled, were at once put aside, and guns were grasped in the place of roasting-sticks.