Long Odds Read online

waggon, and had a good sleep till half-past two or so in theafternoon, when I rose and cooked some meat, and had my dinner, washingit down with a pannikin of black coffee--for it was difficult to getpreserved milk in those days. Just as I had finished, and the driver, aman called Tom, was washing up the things, in comes the young scoundrelof a voorlooper driving one ox before him.

  "'Where are the other oxen?' I asked.

  "'Koos!' he said, 'Koos! the other oxen have gone away. I turned my backfor a minute, and when I looked round again they were all gone exceptKaptein, here, who was rubbing his back against a tree.'

  "'You mean that you have been asleep, and let them stray, you villain. Iwill rub your back against a stick,' I answered, feeling very angry, forit was not a pleasant prospect to be stuck up in that fever trap for aweek or so while we were hunting for the oxen. 'Off you go, and you too,Tom, and mind you don't come back till you have found them. They havetrekked back along the Middelburg Road, and are a dozen miles off bynow, I'll be bound. Now, no words; go both of you.'

  "Tom, the driver, swore, and caught the lad a hearty kick, which herichly deserved, and then, having tied old Kaptein up to the disselboomwith a reim, they took their assegais and sticks, and started. I wouldhave gone too, only I knew that somebody must look after the waggon, andI did not like to leave either of the boys with it at night. I was in avery bad temper, indeed, although I was pretty well used to these sortof occurrences, and soothed myself by taking a rifle and going to killsomething. For a couple of hours I poked about without seeing anythingthat I could get a shot at, but at last, just as I was again withinseventy yards of the waggon, I put up an old Impala ram from behind amimosa thorn. He ran straight for the waggon, and it was not till he waspassing within a few feet of it that I could get a decent shot at him.Then I pulled, and caught him half-way down the spine; over he went,dead as a door-nail, and a pretty shot it was, though I ought not to sayit. This little incident put me into rather a better humour, especiallyas the buck had rolled over right against the after-part of the waggon,so I had only to gut him, fix a reim round his legs, and haul him up. Bythe time I had done this the sun was down, and the full moon was up, anda beautiful moon it was. And then there came down that wonderful hushwhich sometimes falls over the African bush in the early hours of thenight. No beast was moving, and no bird called. Not a breath of airstirred the quiet trees, and the shadows did not even quiver, they onlygrew. It was very oppressive and very lonely, for there was not a signof the cattle or the boys. I was quite thankful for the society of oldKaptein, who was lying down contentedly against the disselboom, chewingthe cud with a good conscience.

  "Presently, however, Kaptein began to get restless. First he snorted,then he got up and snorted again. I could not make it out, so like afool I got down off the waggon-box to have a look round, thinking itmight be the lost oxen coming.

  "Next instant I regretted it, for all of a sudden I heard a roar and sawsomething yellow flash past me and light on poor Kaptein. Then camea bellow of agony from the ox, and a crunch as the lion put his teeththrough the poor brute's neck, and I began to realize what had happened.My rifle was in the waggon, and my first thought being to get hold ofit, I turned and made a bolt for it. I got my foot on the wheel andflung my body forward on to the waggon, and there I stopped as if I werefrozen, and no wonder, for as I was about to spring up I heard the lionbehind me, and next second I felt the brute, ay, as plainly as I canfeel this table. I felt him, I say, sniffing at my left leg that washanging down.

  "My word! I did feel queer; I don't think that I ever felt so queerbefore. I dared not move for the life of me, and the odd thing wasthat I seemed to lose power over my leg, which had an insane sort ofinclination to kick out of its own mere motion--just as hystericalpeople want to laugh when they ought to be particularly solemn. Well,the lion sniffed and sniffed, beginning at my ankle and slowly nosingaway up to my thigh. I thought that he was going to get hold then, buthe did not. He only growled softly, and went back to the ox. Shifting myhead a little I got a full view of him. He was about the biggest lionI ever saw, and I have seen a great many, and he had a most tremendousblack mane. What his teeth were like you can see--look there, pretty bigones, ain't they? Altogether he was a magnificent animal, and as I laythere sprawling on the fore-tongue of the waggon, it occurred to me thathe would look uncommonly well in a cage. He stood there by the carcassof poor Kaptein, and deliberately disembowelled him as neatly as abutcher could have done. All this while I dared not move, for he keptlifting his head and keeping an eye on me as he licked his bloody chops.When he had cleared Kaptein out he opened his mouth and roared, and I amnot exaggerating when I say that the sound shook the waggon. Instantlythere came back an answering roar.

  "'Heavens!' I thought, 'there is his mate.'

  "Hardly was the thought out of my head when I caught sight in themoonlight of the lioness bounding along through the long grass, andafter her a couple of cubs about the size of mastiffs. She stoppedwithin a few feet of my head, and stood, waved her tail, and fixed mewith her glowing yellow eyes; but just as I thought that it was all overshe turned and began to feed on Kaptein, and so did the cubs. There werefour of them within eight feet of me, growling and quarrelling, rendingand tearing, and crunching poor Kaptein's bones; and there I lay shakingwith terror, and the cold perspiration pouring out of me, feeling likeanother Daniel come to judgment in a new sense of the phrase. Presentlythe cubs had eaten their fill, and began to get restless. One went roundto the back of the waggon and pulled at the Impala buck that hung there,and the other came round my way and commenced the sniffing game at myleg. Indeed, he did more than that, for my trouser being hitched up alittle, he began to lick the bare skin with his rough tongue. The morehe licked the more he liked it, to judge from his increased vigour andthe loud purring noise he made. Then I knew that the end had come, forin another second his file-like tongue would have rasped through theskin of my leg--which was luckily pretty tough--and have tasted theblood, and then there would be no chance for me. So I just lay there andthought of my sins, and prayed to the Almighty, and reflected that afterall life was a very enjoyable thing.

  "Then all of a sudden I heard a crashing of bushes and the shoutingand whistling of men, and there were the two boys coming back with thecattle, which they had found trekking along all together. The lionslifted their heads and listened, then bounded off without a sound--and Ifainted.

  "The lions came back no more that night, and by the next morning mynerves had got pretty straight again; but I was full of wrath when Ithought of all that I had gone through at the hands, or rather noses,of those four brutes, and of the fate of my after-ox Kaptein. He was asplendid ox, and I was very fond of him. So wroth was I that like afool I determined to attack the whole family of them. It was worthy ofa greenhorn out on his first hunting trip; but I did it nevertheless.Accordingly after breakfast, having rubbed some oil upon my leg, whichwas very sore from the cub's tongue, I took the driver, Tom, who did nothalf like the business, and having armed myself with an ordinary doubleNo. 12 smoothbore, the first breechloader I ever had, I started. I tookthe smoothbore because it shot a bullet very well; and my experience hasbeen that a round ball from a smoothbore is quite as effective against alion as an express bullet. The lion is soft, and not a difficult animalto finish if you hit him anywhere in the body. A buck takes far morekilling.

  "Well, I started, and the first thing I set to work to do was to try todiscover whereabouts the brutes lay up for the day. About three hundredyards from the waggon was the crest of a rise covered with singlemimosa trees, dotted about in a park-like fashion, and beyond this wasa stretch of open plain running down to a dry pan, or waterhole, whichcovered about an acre of ground, and was densely clothed with reeds,now in the sere and yellow leaf. From the further edge of this pan theground sloped up again to a great cleft, or nullah, which had been cutout by the action of the water, and was pretty thickly sprinkled withbush, amongst which grew some large trees, I forget of what sort.

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p; "It at once struck me that the dry pan would be a likely place to findmy friends in, as there is nothing a lion is fonder of than lying upin reeds, through which he can see things without being seen himself.Accordingly thither I went and prospected. Before I had got half-wayround the pan I found the remains of a blue vilderbeeste that hadevidently been killed within the last three or four days and partiallydevoured by lions; and from other indications about I was soon assuredthat if the family were not in the pan that day they spent a good dealof their spare time there. But if there, the question was how to getthem out; for it was clearly impossible to think of going in afterthem unless one was quite determined to commit suicide. Now there was astrong wind blowing from the direction of the waggon, across the reedypan towards the bush-clad kloof or donga, and this first gave me theidea of