And the thicket itself ended not fifty yards away. No
buffalo could possibly come out without our seeing him; and we
had a good half hour of clear daylight before us. It really
seemed that luck had changed at last.
We settled ourselves, unlimbered for action, and got our breath.
The buffaloes came nearer and nearer. At length, through a tiny
opening a hundred yards away, we could catch momentary glimpses
of their great black bodies. I thrust forward the safety catch
and waited. Finally a half dozen of the huge beasts were feeding
not six feet inside the circle of brush, and only thirty-odd
yards from where we lay.
And they came no farther! I never passed a more heart-breaking
half hour of suspense than that in which little by little the
daylight and our hopes faded, while those confounded buffaloes
moved slowly out to the very edge of the thicket, turned, and
moved as slowly back again. At times they came actually into
view. We could see their sleek black bodies rolling lazily into
sight and back again, like seals on the surface of water, but
never could we make out more than that. I could have had a dozen
good shots, but I could not even guess what I would be shooting
at. And the daylight drained away and the minutes ticked by!
Finally, as I could see no end to this performance save that to
which we had been so sickeningly accustomed in the last four
days, I motioned to Memba Sasa, and together we glided like
shadows into the thicket.
There it was already dusk. We sneaked breathlessly through the
small openings, desperately in a hurry, almost painfully on the
alert. In the dark shadow sixty yards ahead stood a half dozen
monstrous bodies all facing our way. They suspected the presence
of something unusual, but in the darkness and the stillness they
could neither identify it nor locate it exactly. I dropped on one
knee and snatched my prism glasses to my eyes. The magnification
enabled me to see partially into the shadows. Every one of the
group carried the sharply inturned points to the horns: they were
all cows!
An instant after I had made out this fact, they stampeded across
our face. The whole band thundered and crashed away.
Desperately we sprang after them, our guns atrail, our bodies
stooped low to keep down in the shadow of the earth. And
suddenly, without the slightest warning we plumped around a bush
square on top of the entire herd. It had stopped and was staring
back in our direction. I could see nothing but the wild toss of a
hundred pair of horns silhouetted against such of the irregular
saffron afterglow as had not been blocked off by the twigs and
branches of the thicket.
