't face it as they do.
They've only found a lizard. Here, here, here, Pomp, Caesar, Pomp.
Hey, dogs, then! Look out, Jack! Gallop?"

Dick fired a random shot at something that charged at them from out of
the high grass. The next instant their horses had swerved round and
were galloping away over the rough surface as hard as they could go.

They had been grumbling at not being able to find any large game. Now
they had found some with a vengeance, for a monstrous rhinoceros had
been disturbed by the dogs, and with all its angry passions roused it
was charging down upon the young horsemen as hard as it could go.

It seemed incredible that so great and clumsy an animal could gallop so
fast; but gallop it did, at a tremendous rate, paying no more heed to
the bitings and yelpings of the dogs than if they had been flies. But,
tossing its curious snout, armed with two horns, high in the air, it
uttered a loud, angry, snorting noise as it thundered along threatening
to overtake the horses at every stride. The dogs behaved very well, but
they might as well have snapped at the trunk of a tree as at that horny
hide, and at last in despair they contented themselves with galloping on
by the animal's side.

To shoot was impossible; to avoid the creature, just as impossible; and
so the boys used their whips more than once to try and get their cobs
faster over the ground.

It went against the grain to use a whip to the sleek sides of the cobs,
but the rhinoceros was gaining upon them, and to be overtaken meant to
be trampled to death.

"Come along, Jack; use your whip again," cried Dick. "We can't shoot."

"Shall we separate?" said Jack back from his horse, as they tore over
the grass.

"No, no; let's keep together."

"Very well, then; but where shall we go? Which way shall we turn?
Shall we try for that wood in front?"

"No, no, no," cried Dick. "We should not be able to get through, but
that beast would go past bushes as if they were paper. That's a thorn
wood, too."

"Where's father, I wonder?" cried Jack.

Dick looked over his shoulder.

"There he comes, full gallop. He sees what a mess we are in."

"But he can't help us," cried Jack. "Sit close, Dick, old fellow; and
look out for holes in front, whatever you do."

Away they went in their mad gallop, longing for the rhinoceros to give
up his hunt of the hunters, but the huge beast came thundering along in
the most persistent way, close at their heels,