It proved to be a doe, a great prize of course, but not to be compared with the male.  We skinned her carefully, and moved on, delighted to have the species.

Our luck was not over, however.  At the end of six hours we picked our camp in a pretty grove by the swift-running stream.  There we sat down to await the safari.  The tree-tops were full of both the brown and blue monkeys, baboons barked at us from a distance, the air was musical with many sweet birds.  Big thunder-clouds were gathering around the horizon.

The safari came in.  Mohammed immediately sought us out to report, in great excitement, that he had seen five kudu across the stream.  He claimed to have watched them even after the safari had passed, and that they had not been alarmed.  The chance was slight that the kudu could be found, but still it was a chance.  Accordingly we rather reluctantly gave up our plans for a loaf and a nap.  Mohammed said the place was an hour back; we had had six hours march already.  However, about two o’clock we set out.  Before we had arrived quite at the spot we caught a glimpse of the five kudu as they dashed across a tiny opening ahead of us.  They had moved downstream and crossed the river.

It seemed rather hopeless to follow them into that thick country once they had been alarmed, but the prize was great.  Therefore Memba Sasa and I took up the trail.  We crept forward a mile, very quiet, very tense—­very sweaty.  Then simultaneously, through a chance opening and a long distance away, we caught a patch of gray with a single transverse white stripe.  There was no chance to ascertain the sex of the beast, nor what part of its anatomy was thus exposed.  I took a bull’s eye chance on that patch of gray; had the luck to hit it in the middle.  The animal went down.  Memba Sasa leapt forward like a madman; I could not begin to keep pace with him.  When I had struggled through the thorn, I found him dancing with delight.

“Monuome, bwana! buck, master!” he cried as soon as he saw me, and made a spiral gesture in imitation of the male’s beautiful corkscrew horns.

While the men prepared the trophy, F. and I followed on after the other four to see what they would do, and speedily came to the conclusion that we were lucky to land two of the wily beasts.  The four ran compactly together and in a wide curve for several hundred yards.  Then two faced directly back, while the other two, one on either side, made a short detour out and back to guard the flanks.

We did not get back to camp until after dark.  A tremendous pair of electric storms were volleying and roaring at each other across the space of night; leopards were crying; a pack of wild dogs were barking vociferously.  The camp, as we approached it, was a globe of light in a bower of darkness.  The fire, shining and flickering on the under sides of the leaves, lent them a strangely unreal stage-like appearance; the porters, their half-naked bodies and red blankets catching the blaze, roasted huge chunks of meat over little fires.