ed. As I spoke the great fragment
of rock loosely embedded in earth on the mountain side gave way with a
crash, and came tumbling majestically down on the top of the scrub.
As for F----, he described a series of somersaults in the air, which
however agreeable in themselves, were very trying to the nerves of the
spectatrix below. My first dread was least the rock should crush him,
but to my great joy I saw at once that it was rolling slowly down the
hill, whilst F----'s vigorous bound off it as it gave way, had carried
him well into the middle of the leafy cushion beneath him, where he
presently landed flat on his back!

I expected every moment to hear the revolver go off, but mercifully it
did not do so; and as his thorny bed was hardly to be endured, F----
soon kicked himself off it, and before I could realize that he was
unhurt, had scrambled to his feet, and was rushing off, crying in
school-boy glee, "That will fetch him out" That (the rock) certainly did
fetch him (the pig) out in a moment, and Pincher availed himself of the
general confusion to seize hold of his enemy's hind leg, which he never
afterwards let go. The boar kept snapping and champing his great tusks;
but Pincher, even with the leg in his mouth, was too active to be
caught: so as the boar found that it was both futile and undignified
to try to run away with a dog hanging on his hind-quarters, he tried
another plan. Making for a clump of Ti-ti palms he went to bay, and
contrived to take up a very good defensive position. Pincher would have
never given up his mouthful of leg if F---- had not called him off, for
it seemed impossible to fire the revolver whilst the dog held on. This
change of tactics was much against Pincher's judgment, and he kept
rushing furiously in between F---- and the boar. As for me, I prudently
retired behind a big boulder, on which I could climb if the worst came
to the worst, and called out from time to time, to both dog and man,
"Oh, don't!"

They did not even hear me, for the din of battle was loud. The pig
dodged about so fast, that although F----'s bullets lodged in the palm
tree at his back, not one struck a vulnerable part, and at last F----,
casting his revolver behind him for me to pick up and reload, closed
with his foe, armed only with the shear-spear. Pincher considered
this too dangerous, and rushed in between them to distract the boar's
attention. Just as F---- aimed a thrust at his chest,--for it was of
no use t