My clothes and hunting cap
matched so well with the bark of the tree behind which I was
kneeling, that I was unobserved, and, taking a rest against the
stem with the little Fletcher, I fired both barrels, the right at
the most distant bull. Both animals simply sprang for an instant
upon their hind legs, and fell. This was capital; but at the
report of the rifle, up jumped two other mehedehets, which
appeared the facsimiles of those I had just shot; having missed
their companions, and seeing no one, they stood motionless and
gazed in all directions.
I had left my people far behind when I had commenced the stalk,
therefore I had no spare rifle. I reloaded behind the tree with
all haste. I had capped the nipples, and, as I looked out from my
covering point, I saw them still in the same spot; the larger,
with superb horns, was about a hundred and twenty yards distant.
Again I took a rest, and fired. He sprang away as though
untouched for the first three or four bounds, when he leapt
convulsively in the air, and fell backwards. This was too much
for the remaining animal, that was standing about a hundred yards
distant--he bounded off; but the last barrel of the little
Fletcher caught him through the neck at full gallop, and he fell
all of a heap, stone dead.
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