“It has gone to the fort,” said the men—­“bags always go to the fort.”  I pointed out that, if it had meant to go to the fort, it would have gone towards the fort, instead of in another direction; but the argument did not move them.  “The fort is a jungle, and where else should a ‘bag’ take refuge but in a jungle?” However, I was obstinate, and pursued the original direction until we arrived at the brow of the hill, where it sloped steeply down to the sea.  The whole slope, for half a mile, was covered with a dense scrub of Lantana bushes.  This is another plant introduced in some by-gone century from South America, and planted first in gardens for its profuse clusters of red and pink verbena-like blossoms (it is a near relation of the garden verbena), whence it has spread like the rabbit in New Zealand, and become a nuisance.  “There,” I cried, pointing at the scrub, “there, without doubt, your wounded ‘bag’ is lying.”

Some of the men, unbelieving still, were amusing themselves by rolling large stones down the slope, when suddenly there was a sound of scrambling, and across an opening in the scrub, in sight of us all, a huge hyaena scurried away “on three legs.”  I sent a man post-haste for my rifle, which I had not brought with me, never expecting to require it until a regular campaign could be arranged.  As soon as it arrived, we formed in line and advanced, throwing stones in all directions.

Make no offering of admiration at the shrine of our hardihood, for we were in no peril.  Among carnivorous beasts there is not a more contemptible poltroon than the hyaena, even when wounded.  A friend of mine once tied up a billy goat as a bait for a panther and sat up over it in a tree.  In the middle of the night a hyaena nosed it from afar, and came sneaking up in the rear, for hyaenas love the flesh of goats next to that of dogs.  But the goat saw it, and, turning about bravely, presented his horned front.  This the hyaena could not find stomach to face.  For two hours he manoeuvred to take the goat in rear, but it turned as he circled, and stood up to him stoutly till the dawn came, and my friend cut short its disreputable career with a bullet.

To return to my story, we had not gone far when, on a lower level, not many yards from me, I was suddenly confronted by that repulsive, ghoulish physiognomy which can never be forgotten when once seen, the smoky-black snout, broad forehead and great upstanding ears.  Instantly the beast wheeled and scrambled over a bank, receiving a hasty rear shot which, as I afterwards found, left it but one limb to go with, for the bullet passed clean through a hindleg and lodged in a foreleg.  It went on, however, and some time passed before I descried it far off dragging itself painfully across an open space.  A careful shot finished it, and it died under a thick bush, where we found it and dragged it out.  It proved to be a large male, measuring 4 feet 7 inches, from which something over a foot must be deducted for its shabby tail.