ve on with as much quickness as was
consistent with silence.

Our advance, although conducted with the same stealth that marks the
movement of a cat towards its prey, was still not sufficiently inaudible
to escape the refined senses of the elephant. He ceased feeding, and
remained for some minutes like a statue. A novice would have laughed
had he been told that a wild elephant of twelve feet high was within a
few yards of him; the only indication the animal gave of his presence
was a slight blowing through the trunk as the unsavoury flavour of my
warm Kaffirs was wafted to his sensitive olfactories, or as a dried
stick cracked under his spongy feet. The density of the underwood,
which was caused by the festoons of wild vine and creepers, prevented
our seeing more than a yard or two in many parts; and though the
branches directly over us were shaken by the movement of the monster's
body, yet we could make out nothing but a dark mass of bush: to have
fired thus, therefore, would have been folly. Monyosi had frequently
eaten little bits of his charmed wood: I dared not speak to ask him its
specific, but I afterwards learnt it was infallible as a preventive
against injury from wild beasts. My own man, Inyovu, was as pale as a
black man could be, and his whole frame appeared to suffer much from
cold. I dare say, had I counted my own pulse, I should have found it
quicker than usual.

The elephant's patience was the first to be exhausted: with a
half-growl, half-trumpet, he forced himself through the tangled
brushwood towards us. He came in sight so close to me, that the muzzle
of my rifle was considerably elevated when I fired. With a turn and
rush that a harlequin might have envied, I soon got over a hundred
yards, the line to run having been determined on previous to firing. It
would not have been wise to stay and look if one were being pursued; run
first, and look afterwards, was the approved plan. It is a poor sort of
courage, that fears taking precautions, lest its truth should be
questioned.

There was a crash somewhere behind me as I ran, but I could not tell in
which direction; seeing, therefore, that I was likely to come against
others of the herd if I continued my retreat, I took up a position with
my Kaffirs beside a large thick tree, and proceeded to load my rifle,
which I did not accomplish without a reproof from Monyosi for ramming
down the charge whilst the butt of the gun was on the ground.

We