od sentinel on the bank.
There was meat and to spare in the camp, so the hunter only watched the
beautiful animals. The sentinel seemed to suspect danger, and was
fidgety and impatient. Was it possible he knew of the ambush? Captain
Hughes asked himself; and yet from his motions he could not but conclude
he did, when all at once a dark object sprang from the bush, and the
sentinel springbok was in a moment rolling on the ground, while the rest
of the herd were bounding madly over the plain in hurried flight. For a
few seconds, there seemed to be one rolling, writhing mass on the bank;
then the antelope lay still, and a panther, with its beautiful spotted
skin, walked down to the river. Before reaching the water, the animal
stopped and began licking and polishing its hide, disarranged in the
combat. Again the sharp report of the rifle was heard, and the panther,
with a convulsive bound, sprang into the bush, which it could be heard
tearing with its powerful jaws and claws in the death agony. Soon all
was again still, as scrambling out of the pit, the hunter crossed the
river, and advanced cautiously towards the carcass of the springbok,
finding it still quivering with muscular excitement, but quite dead.
Holding his rifle at full cock, slowly and deliberately he approached
the bush. The moonlight streamed over the painted hide of a large
panther, lying quite dead.

Leaving the carcass untouched, Captain Hughes managed to drag the deer
on one side, covering it in the thick undergrowth, and then once more
crossing the river determined never again to leave the brush growing
close to the mouth of his hiding-place. That which had been the
sentinel springbok's fate had certainly been his, if the panther had
come that side of the river.

The report of the rifle had doubtless frightened the deer around, for
fully two hours passed without anything coming to the water. The time
seemed very long, and the effect of the unusual excitement passing away,
the hunter again became drowsy. The position was a cramped one; the
first part of the night, before the thunderstorm had cooled the air, had
been hot and sultry; the breeze, heavily laden with the scent of the
flowers of the mobala trees, again came in hot puffs, bringing with it
the cry of the jackal and the hyena, and the other thousand noises of
animal life which so distinguish night from day among the wild plains of
Southern Africa. Still nearer to the watcher was to b