“Instantly the whole place became alive with alarming sounds.  In every direction troops of snorting buffaloes charged through the forest, wild with fright, while the injured bull on the further side of the bush began to bellow like a mad thing.  I lay quite still for a moment, devoutly praying that none of the flying buffaloes would come my way.  Then when the danger lessened I got on to my feet, shook myself, and looked round.  One of my boys, he who had thrown himself backward into the bush, was already half way up a tree—­if heaven had been at the top of it he could not have climbed quicker.  Gobo was lying close to me, groaning vigorously, but, as I suspected, quite unhurt; while from the aloe bush into which No. 3 had bounded like a tennis ball, issued a succession of the most piercing yells.

“I looked, and saw that this unfortunate fellow was in a very tight place.  A great spike of aloe had run through the back of his skin waist-belt, though without piercing his flesh, in such a fashion that it was impossible for him to move, while within six feet of him the injured buffalo bull, thinking, no doubt, that he was the aggressor, bellowed and ramped to get at him, tearing the thick aloes with his great horns.  That no time was to be lost, if I wished to save the man’s life, was very clear.  So seizing my eight-bore, which was fortunately uninjured, I took a pace to the left, for the rhinoceros had enlarged the hole in the bush, and aimed at the point of the buffalo’s shoulder, since on account of my position I could not get a fair side shot for the heart.  As I did so I saw that the rhinoceros had given the bull a tremendous wound in the stomach, and that the shock of the encounter had put his left hind-leg out of joint at the hip.  I fired, and the bullet striking the shoulder broke it, and knocked the buffalo down.  I knew that he could not get up any more, because he was now injured fore and aft, so notwithstanding his terrific bellows I scrambled round to where he was.  There he lay glaring furiously and tearing up the soil with his horns.  Stepping up to within two yards of him I aimed at the vertebra of his neck and fired.  The bullet struck true, and with a thud he dropped his head upon the ground, groaned, and died.

“This little matter having been attended to with the assistance of Gobo, who had now found his feet, I went on to extricate our unfortunate companion from the aloe bush.  This we found a thorny task, but at last he was dragged forth uninjured, though in a very pious and prayerful frame of mind.  His ‘spirit had certainly looked that way,’ he said, or he would now have been dead.  As I never like to interfere with true piety, I did not venture to suggest that his spirit had deigned to make use of my eight-bore in his interest.