Well, be it so, said Wilkins, somewhat disappointed, “but I’m determined to kick him up anyhow.”
Saying this he advanced towards the brute, but again the powerful hand of Mafuta seized him.
“What you do? want git kill altogidder? You is a fool! (the black had lost temper a little). Him got nuff strong in hims tail to crack off de legs of ’oo like stem-pipes. Yis, kom back?”
Wilkins felt a strong tendency to rebel, and the Caffre remonstrated in so loud a voice that the crocodile awoke with a start, and immediately convinced the obstinate hunter that he had at least been saved broken bones by Mafuta, for he never in his life before had seen anything like the terrific whirl that he gave his tail, as he dashed into the water some fifteen yards ahead. Almost immediately afterwards he turned round, and there, floating like a log on the stream, took a cool survey of the disturbers of his morning’s repose!
“It’s hard to refuse such an impudent invitation to do one’s worst,” said Wilkins, again raising his gun.
“No, you mustn’t,” cried Tom Brown, grasping his friend’s arm; “come along, I see the bow of the boat among the rushes not far ahead of us, and yonder is a hippopotamus, or sea-cow as they call it here, waiting to be shot.”
Without further delay they embarked in the boat, which, though small, was found to be sufficiently tight, and rowed off towards the spot where the hippopotamus had been seen. Presently his blunt ungainly head rose within ten feet of them. Wilkins got such a start that he tripped over one of the thwarts in trying to take aim, and nearly upset the boat. He recovered himself, however, in a moment, and fired—sending a ball into the brute which just touched the brain and stunned it. He then fired his second barrel, and while he was loading Tom put two more balls into it. It proved hard to kill, however, for they fired alternately, and put sixteen bullets—seven to the pound—into different parts of its head before they succeeded in killing it.
They towed their prize to the shore, intending to land and secure it, when a calf hippopotamus shoved its blunt nose out of the water close at hand, gazed stupidly at them and snorted. Tom at once shot it in the head, and it commenced to bellow lustily. Instantly the mother’s head cleft the surface of the water as she came up to the rescue and rushed at the boat, the gunwale of which she seized in her mouth and pulled it under.
“Quick!” shouted Tom, as he fired his second barrel into her ear.
Wilkins did not require to be urged, as the water was flowing into the boat like a deluge. He delivered both shots into her almost simultaneously, and induced her to let go! Another shot from Tom in the back of her neck entered the spine and killed her.