a halo of his own swishing tail, at the rate of
knots.

It was nothing to be wondered at in that strange antelope that he should
then sink from wild motion to absolute, fixed rigidity, broken only by
the restless, horse-like swishing of the long tail, staring hard at the
ratel.

Perhaps it was the bees that did it, or perhaps the ratel stood in the
gnu's very own path, or in the way of his private dusting-hole. I know
not; neither did the ratel--nor care much, for the matter of that. But
when the gnu went off again, circling with hoarse snorts, and shying and
swerving furiously and wonderfully at top speed, he sat up on his
hindlegs, the better to get a view of the strange sight. Perhaps he
thought a lion was lying somewhere near that he could not see from his
lowly, natural position.

Again the gnu stopped as utterly instantly as if he had run into a brick
wall, pawed, stamped, snorted, and went off once more into furiously
insane caperings--a new set--all the time circling, with the little,
black-and-gray, erect figure of the surprised ratel as a pivot.

And then, in a flash, before any one had a second's warning to grasp the
truth or prepare, with head down, eyes burning in the down-dropped,
shaggy head, and upcurved horn-points gleaming in the afternoon sun, he
charged, hurling himself, a living, reckless, furious battering-ram,
straight at the little ratel.

Did that ratel quit quick? Do ratels ever quit an unbeaten foe? I don't
know. They may, once in the proverbial blue moon; but I haven't seen
'em. This one didn't. He seemed to know that it is held to be a sound
military maxim to meet an attack by counter-attack, and he did, though he
had only the fifth of a second to do it in. Ah, but it was good to see
that odd little beast trotting out coolly, head low, tail high, singing
his war-song as he rolled along to meet the charging foe so many, many
times his own size.

Next moment there was a thud--somewhat as if some one had punched a
pillow--and the ratel was flying through the air, high and fine, in a
graceful and generous curve. A thorn-bush--what matter the precise name?
there are so many in those parts, all execrable--acknowledged receipt of
his carcass with a crash, and for a few seconds he hung, like a sack on a
nail, spitted cleanly by at least one thorn, far thornier than anything
we know here, before the thing gave way, and he fell, still limply, this
way and that, hesitatingly, as it wer