slipping over into little ravines, lying very flat when one of the
beasts raised his head, we edged nearer and nearer. We were already well
within range, but it amused us to play the game. Finally, at one hundred
yards, we came to a halt. The zebra showed very handsome at that range,
for even their smaller leg stripes were all plainly visible. Of course
at that distance there could be small chance of missing, and we owned
one each. The Wakamba, who had been watching eagerly, swarmed down,
shouting.

We dined just at sunset under a small tree at the very top of the peak.
Long bars of light shot through the western clouds; the plain turned
from solid earth to a mysterious sea of shifting twilights; the buttes
stood up, wrapped in veils of soft desert colours; Kilimanjaro hung
suspended like a rose-coloured bubble above the abyss beyond the world.




XXI.

RIDING THE PLAINS.


From the mere point of view of lions, lion A hunting was very slow work
indeed. It meant riding the whole of long days, from dawn until dark,
investigating miles of country that looked all alike and in which we
seemed to get nowhere. One by one the long billows of plain fell behind,
until our camp hill had turned blue behind us, and we seemed to be out
in illimitable space, with no possibility, in an ordinary lifetime, of
ever getting in touch with anything again. What from above had looked as