But though I avoided instant destruction by moving out of the direct line of his headlong rush, his shoulder caught me as he passed and sent me head over heels, stiff and bruised and knocked half senseless.
The rifle flew from my hands, and for the moment I could not see it. I crept, however, with wonderful swiftness behind a small scrub-bush, and lay an instant with half-closed eyes, trying to recover my full senses, but sufficiently conscious to be aware that I must make no sound if I valued my life.
The rhinoceros had charged on meanwhile, his impetus carrying him thirty yards beyond the spot where he brushed against me in passing. I could see that he had now turned and stood listening and watching, his two wicked little eyes moving this way and that.
Would he see me?
I could now make out the barrel of my rifle lying in a patch of thin grass. The sun had caught the polished steel and caused it to glint brightly. As for me, I dared not breathe, much less move out of my cover in order to secure my weapon.
So matters remained for a full minute; the rhino standing listening, the rifle lying inaccessible to me, though but five yards away; Umkopo invisible, doubtless hiding somewhere like myself; the Kaffir, as usual in moments of danger, goodness only knew where, and my spare rifle with him.
Suddenly, to my horror, I saw Umkopo deliberately step out from behind a prickly pear, in full view of the rhino, which, of course, instantly charged him.
Umkopo vanished, and our friend the rhino galloped at steam-engine pace right through the bush, behind which he seemed to disappear. This, I felt, was intended by Umkopo as an opportunity for me to recover my rifle, and I stepped quickly out from my hiding-place and leaped towards it; I seized it, and looked round.
By all that was horrible, the great beast had heard me, and with marvellous rapidity had wheeled and was already almost upon me! Well, I have never done anything so quickly in all my life as at that moment. I simply flung myself, in a kind of flying leap, back into my thorn-bush, cleared it, and lay down on the other side.
In a quarter of a second the rhino had passed like a flash of substantial lightning through the bush and beyond, galloping almost over me as I lay, and almost kicking me with his hind leg. I twisted myself round to the other side of the bush while his impetus carried him forward, and by the time I was able to peer out at him, he was already twenty-five yards away, and facing once more in my direction.