"Drive 'em back to us," Kearton called after them, and Means waved his hand by way of answer.
Behind us, the line of porters was coming up along the road. They were straggling badly, broken up into little sections of threes and fours, so that the last of them were not yet in sight. Gobbet was sent back to hurry forward the four special porters with the cameras, and when these finally arrived upon the scene, their faces covered with dust and sweat, the horsemen had dwindled to dots only a little larger than the hogs themselves.
Kearton placed the cameras a few yards apart, and there we waited, watching the distant specks.
Two of the riders disappeared into a far patch of scrub. The third began swinging to the southward. His horse was galloping after something we could not see.
In the meantime the safari was coming up, and as each section arrived it was halted, and the porters put down their loads and sat on them. Some of them turned their backs upon the scene in total indifference as to what was coming next; others regarded the cameras with expressions of mild curiosity.
Little by little the third horseman had swung round so that he was headed due east, riding straight at us. Rapidly the speck grew larger, and the two other riders came out of the scrub and joined the chase.
Nearer and nearer they came, with the dust cloud swirling behind them. Gobbet began turning the handle of his camera, and the whir of the machine sounded loud in the stillness. One or two of the porters jumped to their feet and pointed. Kearton waited.
"I hope they won't come straight into the lens," he said. "If they do, it won't make a good picture. They ought to come at an angle. So," he explained, placing his hand obliquely to the line of focus. Then he bent over, laid his eye to the gun-sight of the machine, and likewise began turning.
The thunder of the chase could be heard now, and we could see that it was Loveless leading, on his black, with Means and the Colonel close behind and the wart-hog some forty yards ahead. The beast was running strong. His huge snout was thrust forward, and his upturned tusks gleamed in the sunlight. But gradually the black horse gained on him, and Loveless loosened the rope from his saddle and began swinging the long noose round and round his head.
On came the wart-hog, straight for Kearton's camera.