```O, I am out of breath in this fond chase
`````Midsummer Night’s Dream=
``Good morrow to you both; what counterfeit did I give you?
```The slip, sir, the slip
`````Romeo and Juliet=
|Whenever practicable, usually when we remained a day or two in the one
place, I made the men build me a little hut of bushes, so that if there
was any breeze it blew through the branches. At such times I made
my canvas residence a cache-tent, and gladly took up my abode in my
jerry-built shelter, esteeming myself lucky in having it. I should never
have done for a Bedouin or Baluchi. I hate and detest tents, even the
most sumptuous. They are the hottest and coldest residences I know. Give
me four walls and a roof of any sort! Be they never so humble they are
better than the best tent that ever was made. Really, if it hadn’t been
for the flies that unceasingly did worry, my _pied-a-terre_ was luxury,
and I could sing with unmixed pleasure as I looked across at my, for the
nonce, discarded tent, “I wouldn’t leave my little wooden hut for you.”
My furniture was of the “art” variety that you see so frequently
advertised in that useful little journal indispensable to housewives,
_Home Snips_. Two wooden boxes up-ended, with a box lid for top, formed
the table. It was simple and effective, and only lacked the necessary
Aspinall, hedge-sparrow blue for choice, to convert it into a joy for
ever. The remainder of “the suite” matched. A _herio_ made me a carpet,
a biscuit-box a foot-stool. Cecily went in for Spartan simplicity, and
her tent was quite like you read of famous generals who wilfully make
themselves unnecessarily uncomfortable.
Late one evening we had a fracas with the butler. That henchman entered
the precincts of our tent where we were hungrily awaiting supper, and
instead of depositing my cup of soup on to another “art” table presented
me with it in the form of an avalanche down my back. The soup was not
only hot, burning hot, but exceedingly messy, being of the variety known
to our cook as “thick”--_Anglice_, not sieved--and with more bits in it
than usual. Our appearance was not so enticing that it could bear being
played any pranks with, or putting to any additional strain. Moreover,
the cook had no more soup prepared. I had it all, he said. I had indeed!
I gave our butler a sound talking to for his carelessness in this matter
and in others, and incidentally cast doubts on the _savoir faire_ of
that English family who know what’s what. This was the last straw, and I
was answered in a furious jabber of talk. I could not make head nor tail
of it, or even get a word in edgeways. Clarence came to the rescue as
usual. He translated, and tried to stem the torrent of language.
Finally, the whole thing resolved itself into this. Our butler refused
to “buttle” any more. He gave notice, and desired to leave our service.
When I understood, I could not help laughing. I said of course I
accepted the notice, but how he proposed it to take effect was beyond
my understanding, as we were miles from Berbera, at the very back of
beyond, and there could be no means of leaving the caravan with
any degree of safety or sense. If the butler remained, as remain he
obviously must, I insisted on his buttling as usual, but better. He
withdrew at last, angry looking and discontented, and we went to bed.
I remember what a lively night it was. A lion roared for two hours
or more at intervals of ten minutes, very close to camp--such fine
majestic, rolling roars, ending each time in three rumbling “grumphs.”
I hoped the watch watched, and looking forward to meeting my serenader
next day, I turned over and tried to sleep. What a glorious country to
be in! I might anticipate presenting myself on the morrow to a king, and
no mere ordinary mortal, without the “open sesame” of “let me introduce”
being necessary. What a glorious country! Convention spelt with a little
c, and originality--that most excellent of things--everywhere rife. No
running of jungle affairs on the deadly tram-lines of tradition, and
everything new looked on askance. Mrs. Grundy does not live in the wild;
an’ she did conventionality would be taught to the jungle people,
and she would rob them of all their naturalness. Doesn’t she regard
originality very much in the light of a magazine of combustibles, and
take care to lose all the matchboxes? But I--superior I--in Somaliland
might strike, and strike, and strike.
Having once returned to Nature, one has eaten of the tree of life
and knowledge, and can never again be content with what we call
“civilisation.” Fortunately Nature can be discovered everywhere
quite close at hand if we hunt very carefully, but unless God is very
particularly kind with His storms and clouds, imagination has often to
do so much. Then, as if to remind me of my own smallness and impotence
and limitations, came that earthquake roar again.
In the morning breakfast was served by one of the hunters who told us
that Clarence--good man--was out betimes spooring for the lion of
the night, and we hurried our meal that we might not lose any time in
getting started out ourselves. The butler did not appear, and I did not
ask for him, because I judged he was trying to recover his lost temper
and sense of dignity. Breakfast over, Clarence rode into camp, and we
heard raised voices and much discussion. We went on cleaning rifles.
Presently a very perturbed Clarence hurried to us, and told us that
the butler had taken notice, yet without it had annexed one of our best
camels, its driver, a supply of food, and levanted! Heaven only knows
where! How did he propose to reach safety, all unarmed as he was too.
But--was he unarmed? As the thought struck us both instantaneously, we
rushed--Cecily and I--pell-mell to our armoury, and delved into it. In
an agony of fury we realised that our _ci-devant_ butler had taken with
him our ‘35 Winchester. I doubt if he ever fired a rifle in his life,
but I swore he shouldn’t learn on ours. I would go after him, and catch
up with him, if I had to pursue him all the way to Berbera itself.
My chance of meeting that lion--which Clarence had practically
located--were knocked out at 1000 to 1.
A few speedy directions and questions produced a couple of our best
camels, lightly laden, and the knowledge that the fugitive had about an
hour’s start of us, having indeed, waited to go until he saw Clarence
clear of the camp. I reproached the caravan that they had not prevented
the running away, but no sense could be driven into their stupid heads.
Every man feigned complete ignorance. The stolid “me no savey” of
the Chinaman is not a whit more obtuse or provoking than the Somali
equivalent. They can be as beautifully dense as the most wilfully
non-understanding Chinee. Hammers won’t drive a subject in if that
subject is, in their opinion, better kept out. They are diplomatic, but
maddening.
Our two camels for the pursuit were loaded up with a small amount of
food in case we were out all night, and taking my .500 Express as the
best all round rifle, I mounted, not without trepidation, an evil-looking
beast, whose driver greeted me with a tolerant and broad smile.
Clarence, as to the manner born, put himself on the other animal, and
with a waved “Good-bye” to Cecily, who, lucky person, was going after
King Leo, we set out. My irritation and annoyance at being so signally
done kept me up for a short time, but it was not really long before the
unaccustomed method of travel began to tell. I had never before been
for a long excursion on board a ship of the desert, certainly I had
previously no idea of what it could do going “full steam ahead.” It
is difficult to explain the matter delicately. To put it as nicely as
possible, I suffered horribly from “mal-de-camel.”
We never stopped, we rushed on at top speed. The way the camel-men
picked up the trail of the runaway was very clever, sorting it out
from other trails, and must, I think, have been born of centuries of
following. Sometimes the great splayed track lay ahead for all to see,
but ofttimes it was lost--to me--in a maze of stones and scrub and thick
country. We went on until, as far as I was concerned, the world was
revolving around me, the sun a gimlet to bore my brain, the dust a dense
curtain to my mind. I did not now look ahead. Vengeance and the desire
for it had left me. Let the man go, and the rifle with him. Probably it
would prove Nemesis enough without my taking on the function!
Suddenly Clarence shouted, and pointed enthusiastically to the horizon.
Yes, there was a twirling column of dust. The fugitive of course. We had
come up with him sooner than I thought. The driver urged along our camel
until we fairly shot over the ground, and presently we could hear the
pad, pad, pad of our stolen animal, and see plainly the recreant butler,
apparently in two minds whether to alter his course or not. His party
swerved suddenly, away to the left, towards a tangle of thorn country.
This was absolute nonsense, and I was provoked into firing anyhow, very
wide, I need hardly say _how_ wide, as a sort of warning to pull up.
The runaways slackened speed at once, and the chase ended like a pricked
bubble. We ranged alongside, and without speaking, bar a few curt
directions, turned campwards, and slowly--oh, how slowly--retraced our
way. We did not make home until 5.30, and during the whole of the hours
since morning we had been going solid, and of course had no opportunity
to get a meal. I personally did not require one, but the men must have
been hungry.
Terribly jolted and worn out I made for my little hut, and lay down
for an hour or so. Cecily was still out, and I resolved to wait for her
assistance to tell off our shameless henchman. She arrived at last from
a fruitless expedition. She came on the kill and followed the lion up,
saw him, then lost all trace of him in thick khansa cover. So we hoped
for better luck next day.
Clarence conducted the crest-fallen butler to the presence, and we
intimated to him that we were astonished, not to say disgusted; that the
promised bonus at the end of the trip was now non-existent as far as
he was concerned; and further, on returning to Berbera, he would be
indicted for the attempted stealing of the rifle and camel. These words
had tremendous effect. He begged us to forgive him. With sophistry
unequalled he explained that our ways were strange to him, that the
Mem-sahib in whose household he was such an ornament was not like unto
these Mem-sahibs.
She stayed at home, and we--“We scour the plain,” put in Cecily.
It was all very absurd, and as we were for the time being perfectly
impotent, however much we might bluster, we provisionally pardoned him
on condition that he returned to butler’s duty, and henceforth spelt it
with a capital D.
“Oh, frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!”
Our men reported that the lion--presumably the same lion--had returned
to his kill, and was now lying up in the bushes watching the meat. Our
tempers had recovered their balance, and we happily set out, Clarence
promising that we should “paint um day red.” His vocabulary was varied
enough to amuse us, and what little English he was absolute master of
was interspersed with the quaintest idioms of Hindostanee and American,
which he would bring out in whole representative sentences. His last
big “shikar” was with an American magnate who wanted, said Clarence, to
“shoot um libbah before um died.” Whether it was to be before the lion
died or the sportsman seemed a bit involved, though as it was obvious
that the sportsman could not very well go shooting after crossing the
“Great Divide,” the demise of the lion must have been referred to. It
certainly was more sporting to wish to shoot at the animal before it
expired than after.
It was the oddest thing in the world to hear that Americanism of
“Painting the town red” on the lips of the solemn Somali. Did he wonder
at its origin as I did? I remember hearing it for the first time in a
little Western mining camp, when its familiarity struck my ear. But it
eluded me, until at last I placed it. You remember where Dante, guided
by Virgil, comes on the suffering spirits of Paolo and Francesca:
“_Noi che tingemmo il mondo di sanguino_.”
There in a nutshell lies the origin of the “painting the town red”
phrase. One cannot but admire the literary points of American slang,
though we know there is so little originality in the mind of man, even
of the American. There is no time to create. It is simpler to take the
ready-made, so that all our speech and writing is unconsciously but a
series of quotations from the great human poets, who expressed simple
human thoughts in the most perfect and yet the simplest words. Every
thought we have can be expressed in quotations from Horace, Dante, and
Shakespeare.
The strength of our party on that memorable morning comprised six of
us--Cecily, myself, Clarence and three hunters. The men led us first to
the kill, from which two sleuth-like forms glided away--jackals, young
ones, with youthful rough coats. Vultures poised motionless in the blue,
or nearer flew sluggishly, with legs hanging loosely, screaming.
The dead aoul poisoned the air with odoriferous whiffs, and I found it
difficult to believe that a lion had returned to a carcase in such an
advanced stage of decomposition, but apparently it was so. Among the
devious trails of hyæna and jackal were the indents of lion spoor.
Massed often, and there in the sand was the plainly seen mark of the
crouched beast as he gnawed his food. We found, too, at a short distance
a piece of dropped flesh, and either side of it the pugs holding on and
quiescent.
Our men, as a rule, wore tremendously heavy sandals, which turned up
at the front like the prow of a ship, but when stalking the hunters
discarded these and were barefooted. For stalking some game the lightest
of foot wear is essential, and though, as a rule, I wore nothing but
boots, I found a pair of moccasins very handy on occasions; they are
too hot, though, for wear in such a country, and the knowing and learned
shikari provides himself with cotton shoes. The thorns are too insistent
to make any light footwear pleasurable to me, but I have gone the length
of taking off my boots and running in stocking feet when a particularly
alert koodoo needed an exceptionally careful stalk, but it was a painful
business, even if necessary, and I don’t advocate it.
Two exquisite lesser koodoo does crossed our front going like the wind,
and we heard a distant bark. Otherwise the jungle slept in the heat of
the sun. Our ponies drooped their heads as the fierce rays smote them
between the eyes. Waves of heat seemed to come rising and rising as the
hoofs churned up the sand.
We dismounted presently, and two of the hunters bestrode the ponies and
fell behind. Fresh lion spoor was now crossing the old trail, and we
decided to follow it up. We came on some very dense mimosa and khansa,
and in this zareba the pugs vanished. We encircled the whole place.
There were no other prints. Our quarry was run to earth. Cecily fired
into the mimosa once, twice, and instantly, like a toy, the machinery
was set in motion, and great snarling growls breaking into stifled
roars broke on the quiet air. This was a most business-like lion, and
evidently was for putting up with none of our monkey tricks. The bushes
parted, and quicker than I can set it down a lion charged out straight,
like a whirlwind, past one of our men who stood next to me. The beast
would have gone on had not the hunter made the greatest possible
mistake. He bolted, thereby drawing attention to himself. The lion
turned on the man, catching him, it seemed to me, by the leg, and they
fell in an inextricable heap. We dared not fire because of the danger,
but not a moment was lost.
All the four hunters rallied to the aid of their comrade. One threw a
spear, which might have done some good had it been pitched accurately.
It fell wide. One smart little fellow actually ran up and whacked
the lion a resounding slap with a rifle--poor rifle! A most brave and
familiar way of acting. It was effectual though. The lion turned from
his purpose and made a bid for safety in the bushes again. I let fly my
right barrel at him as he crashed in, but know I missed, for all I
heard was metallic singing in my ears and no answering thud of a bullet
striking flesh. I went towards the place where the cat vanished. The
humane Cecily was attending to the injured man.
The lion betrayed his exact location by low growls, and I did all I
knew to induce him to charge out again. I shouted, the men shouted,
we whistled, we fired. Then the enraged animal took to roaring,
real resounding roars, in which his personal animus railed at us. I
instructed the men to remain as they were, talking and endeavouring to
weary the lion into breaking cover, whilst I did a stalk.
[Illustration: 0219]
When investigated from the other side, the citadel chosen for the great
stand was of less dense khansa, and the umbrella tops made great dark
shelters for the tunnels between the stems. It was most exciting and
dangerous, and I had so many things to plan and think out. I crawled
in, and commenced to work my way towards the place occupied by my enemy,
whose exact position could be located to a nicety by his growls and
snarls, and the noise he kept up was of the greatest help to me. Even
the lightest, deftest tracker could hardly go through bush like that in
silence.
It was very dark at first in my covert, but at intervals it lightened
up. I crawled for the best part of half an hour, and then, when my
aching hands almost refused to drag me farther, I found myself in dense
undergrowth, in the actual vicinity of the lion, who halfstanding,
half-crouching, was facing, in sparser cover the direction of my hunters
and the scene of the catastrophe. There was nothing to fire at but
swishing tail. The grass and aloes hid any vital part, and I dared not
miss, whatever came about. A heart shot, or a head shot it must be, or
the sportswoman! Oh, where was she! The thought struck through my brain
of the imminence of my danger should Clarence or one of the others take
to some flank movement whereby the present position of things might be
altered by a hair’s breadth. As it was, time was what I needed, and
I should get that. It was foolish of me to doubt my shikari’s common
sense. I had never known him fail, and he knew I was carefully stalking.
I heard their voices at intervals in the distance, buzzing, and it all
seemed some chimera of my brain. Myself in that hot jungle tangle, and
but twenty yards away a lion of mettle and business-like habits! I was
on my knees in half-raised position, and had he turned even in a half
circle, he must, I verily believe, have seen me, and sorted me out as
something untoward.
The air was stifling, and oh! how heavily I weighed on my knees! My
fighting weight seemed enormous as I supported it. It was eight stone
really and seemed like eighteen, but of course it was because, in my
excitement, Antæus-like, I pressed down heavily to something solid until
I drew my strength from earth, and thus took heart of grace. I carefully
got up my rifle. It seemed a long business. Did I really make no noise?
Strange crackling rustlings sounded in my ears, as at each growl I
seized the opportunity, and in the semi-obscurity of the reverberations
placed myself better. The lion came more into focus. I saw his side
where it sank in, then--farther. A heart-shaking second. My bullet was
too low. The vast body lashed round and round. I seemed to see what my
fate would be in another instant. My breath was coming in great sobs,
and I wondered whether the lion was choking or I. All this was in the
fraction of a moment. Then came my opportunity. His chest presented
itself fair and square like a target. I pressed my second trigger, and
then threw myself backwards and went anyhow as though the devil himself
was after me; like a streak of greased lightning. “You kill um libbah?”
asked Clarence, who remained pretty much as I had last seen him.
“I don’t know,” I gasped, stupidly enough.
And neither did I.
Loading up carefully again, I carefully retraced my steps, Clarence
crawling after me. There was no sound. All was still as death. We
crept on until we reached my coign of vantage, and there ahead, prone,
motionless, lay a great yellow mass, some ten yards nearer than at my
first shot. He was dead indeed, and a very fine specimen of his kind.
Strangely enough, he had one eye missing, the hall-mark of some early
battle, and to this fact I possibly owed much of the credit I had been
taking to myself for my stalk. Then began the usual _modus operandi_ for
the animal’s dismemberment, and I cleared out of the place to find that
Cecily had taken the injured man back to camp, propping him up on her
pony with the help of the second hunter. My pony was amusing itself at
some distance, having dragged its moorings, and I caught him after a bit
of a tussle.
The invalid was given my tent, which smelt like concentrated essence of
High Churchism. Keating’s incense smouldered in one corner and burning
carbolic powder fought it for the mastery. Puzzled mosquitoes buzzed
in and out, but more out than in, thanks be. The man’s leg was torn in
strips which hung in two or three inch lengths, fleshy and horrible.
We arranged the torn shreds back, like patching an ornament minus the
seccotine. We covered the wounds with iodoform--very amateurishly of
course--and then bandaged it. Altogether I think the invalid was
rather pleased with himself, as he lay up in the cache-tent, feeling,
doubtless, the importance of having been in the jaws of a lion and come
out alive from such a gin.
As we could not move him for several days, we arranged to form quite a
good zareba, strong and comfortable, round our follower, and make flying
excursions of which it should be the base. The wounded hunter proved
a very unwilling dawdler, being an active-souled creature, and did not
take at all kindly to a life of enforced idleness. He acted like an
irritated vegetable, and only slept and drowsed the hours away, and kept
his leg up, because I solemnly told him he would die if he did not. I
think the active spirits in nations not yet civilised are always the
better. Laziness is demoralising anywhere, and with it one soon harks
back to the animal. Energetic souls are never idle from choice. The
power to idle successfully and with comfort must be inborn. During his
days of illness our charge grew really attached to us, and looked for
our coming with an expansive smile of welcome. We kept the fever down
with quinine, and before many weeks were over his scars were healed into
cicatrices, which, of course, he could never lose. They would, however,
be a glorious asset and advertisement, showing such undoubted zeal, and
should commend the proprietor to any one on the look-out for a truly
sporting hunter.
While I was examining the skull and wet skin of the lion as Clarence
pegged it out, our cook volunteered the information that the butler had
gone again on a still better camel, with the same driver, but minus a
rifle. I had thought he would settle down to a dreary acceptance of
the position. It really was uncomfortable to harbour two such unwilling
people in our otherwise contented caravan, so we decided they were
better gone even at the cost of a camel, and this time we wasted no
energy on trying to retrieve them. Whether they ever made safety again
we never could find out. Their movements from that hour were wrapped in
mystery, and the butler, the driver, and the camel disappeared for
ever from our ken. They must have wanted to go very badly. It was not
complimentary, but we put as good a face on the crusher as we could.