A Voyage round the World / A book for boys

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“Help me! help me, Harry!” he sung out, with good reason dreadfully alarmed. I had just time to throw myself down at full length, and, by loaning over the rock, to seize his hand, before the bull, seeing him, with a terrific bellow made a full butt at him. With a strength I did not think myself capable of exerting, I hauled him up to me, the bull’s horns actually passing between his feet! In his hurry, however, he dropped his gun at the foot of the rock, and the bull vented his rage and disappointment by giving it several butts as it lay on the ground; and I was in great hopes that he would strike the lock and make it go off—it would have astonished him not a little. Jerry almost fainted with the fright the brute had given him, but he very speedily recovered, and then we looked round to see what sort of a place we were on. We found that it was, fortunately, inaccessible on all sides; so we returned with much greater composure to watch the proceedings of our bovine enemies. The other bulls had now come up, with their tails in the air, bellowing at the top of their voices, and tearing the ground up on all sides, and throwing the grass over their heads. They appeared for some reason to be fearfully enraged against us. There were seven bulls altogether. Placed in the convenient position we were, we agreed that we could easily shoot them, and thus raise the siege; but on examining the contents of our pockets, we found that we had only got five bullets between us. Now, supposing every bullet to have had in this case its billet, and to have mortally wounded an animal, that would have left two unprovided for; and even with two we had no desire to contend on the level ground. Still we determined to do what we could; so I loaded and took a steady aim at the beast which had led on the attack. The bullet struck him on the head; but his skull was thick, and though it wounded him severely, it did not enter his brain. The

pain made him tear up the ground more furiously, and bellow louder than before. Jerry said he would try the next time; so I loaded, and he took the gun. I thought he was going to make a good shot, but he was nervous, and the bullet only struck the beast’s shoulder, nor did it increase the sweetness of his temper. We had thus only three bullets, and all our enemies as vicious as ever. The most important thing we agreed to be done was to get rid of the leader; so I took the gun again, and carefully loading, waited till he made a tilt right up to the face of the rock, really looking as if he had been going to try and leap up at us. I tried to be perfectly cool, and fired. The bullet struck him, I was certain of that, but it did not kill him, so I supposed that it had glanced off over his head.

“I won’t miss again,” I cried, loading as rapidly as I could. “One of our last two bullets must do the deed.”

Our enemy, on receiving his last wound, turned off and made a rapid circuit round the rock, to discover, we concluded, if there was any place by which he could get up at us. Finding none, he returned. As soon as he appeared, I took a steady aim, resting the barrel on a lump of rock—I fired. Roaring with fury, he bounded along towards the rock. I thought he would almost have reached us. Suddenly he stopped—down went his head, and over he rolled close under the rock, and there he lay stone dead! We both of us simultaneously raised a loud shout of victory; but, as Jerry remarked, we began to crow rather too soon, for the other six bulls, no way daunted at the fall of their leader, continued raging round about us as furiously as ever. We had only one bullet left, and with that we could scarcely hope even to settle one of them. We sat ourselves down watching our enemies, hoping that they would grow tired of waiting for us and go away; but they seemed by no means disposed to move. Never did a beleaguering army watch more pertinaciously round a hard pressed garrison than did our formidable enemies watch to toss us in the air. In vain we stood up and looked around on every side for our friends, as far as our somewhat limited range of vision extended. There was not a sign of them. They, too, would have become not a little anxious about us, except Cousin Silas thought we were still with Mr Kilby, and the latter gentleman supposed we had joined our other friends. If so, unless they met they would probably not come to look for us. As we had taken but a light luncheon, we began to feel very hungry, and to cast longing glances at our satchels and the teal, which lay at some distance from the rock, but which we dared not attempt to got. Not ten feet below where we sat was the bull. Jerry looked over the rock—

“I should so like to have a juicy beef-steak out of you, old fellow!” said he, addressing the dead animal. “I say, Harry, don’t you think we could manage to get it? The other brutes will certainly grow hungry before long; and, as they don’t want to eat us, while they are picking up their dinners I shall have plenty of time to get down and cut out a few slices. I have my knife, and I sharpened it only yesterday.”

I had mine also; and, as I highly approved of his suggestion, we resolved to wait a favourable opportunity for our exploit. Raw meat was not, however, to our taste; so we agreed to try and light a fire and cook our steaks. There was plenty of dry moss and grass on the rock, so we set to work and collected all that we could find, so that we soon had a famous heap of it, sufficient almost to roast the whole animal. As we expected, the bulls, after looking at us for some time, feeling the calls of hunger, began to lower their tails, and putting their heads to the ground, commenced to munch the tender grass.

“Now, if these beasts had been lions and tigers, the more hungry they grew the more anxious they would have been to get at us. It’s lucky all animals are not carnivorous.”

Having delivered himself of this sagacious remark, Jerry said he was ready to turn butcher. We waited, however, till the bulls had got a little further off, and then he descended on the carcass of our victim, while I bent over the rock, as before, to help him up should they appear inclined to tilt at him. Enough steaks were cut to dine half-a-dozen men; and then, as the bulls did not observe him, grown brave from impunity, he went on further and picked up his gun. This he handed up to me, and it was not much the worse for the butting it had got. The bulls were still feeding quietly, apparently having forgot all about us.

“I say, Harry, I think some biscuits, and rum and water, would not be bad things with our steaks, not to speak of the teal,” said he, looking up at me. “What do you advise? May I venture to run for the satchels and some of the game?”