He had got within five hundred yards of the mountain foot, and less than half that distance from the bucks that still continued to run straight toward the angle of the cliffs. He was now quite sure of a shot. In less than a minute, the herd would be compelled either to stop, or turn back, and meet him in the teeth.
It was time to get his rifle in readiness; and as he intended to fire into the thick mass, he took several small bullets from his pouch, and hastily dropped them into the barrel. He then looked to his percussion-cap, to make sure that all was right. It was so. The copper was properly adjusted on the nipple.
He cocked his gun, and once more looked forward to the game. Not an antelope was in sight!
Where were they? Had they sprung up the mountain? Impossible! The precipice could not be scaled? Impossible! Even had they done so, they would still have been seen upon the mountain face. They were not in sight, not one of them! The hunter reined up, his gun dropped back to the withers of his horse, his jaws fell, and for some moments he sat with parted lips, and eyes glaring in wonderment.
Had he been of a superstitious nature, he might have been troubled with some painful feelings at that moment. But he was not superstitious. Although for a moment or two he could not feel otherwise than astonished at it, he knew there was some natural cause for the “sudden and mysterious disappearance” of the bucks.
He did not pause long in doubt, but proceeded at once to the proper quarter for an explanation. The tracks of the herd guided him to that, and after riding three hundred yards further, the mystery was explained to his full and complete satisfaction.
The angle, after all, was not an angle, for the apex was wanting. There was a “thoroughfare” without the slightest obstruction. Although at a short distance the converging cliffs appeared to impinge upon each other, there was an opening between them—a narrow pass that like an isthmus connected the plain over which the chase had gone, with another and very similar one that stretched away on the other side of the mountains. The blesboks must have known it well enough, else they would not have run so direct for the false angle in the cliffs. Hendrik trotted up the pass to convince himself that it was no cul-de-sac. After going a few hundred yards, the isthmus widened again, and he saw to his chagrin the violet backs of the bucks far off upon the plain that stretched beyond.
Overcome with disappointment and chagrin, he flung himself from his saddle, and staggering a few paces, sat down upon a boulder of rock. He did not even stop to fasten his horse, but, dropping the bridle over his neck, left the froth-covered and panting steed to himself.