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She by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard
page 146 of 362 (40%)
proceeded to creep as near to him as I could. He let me come within
eighty yards, and then turned his head, and stared at me, preparatory to
running away. I lifted the rifle, and taking him about midway down the
shoulder, for he was side on to me, fired. I never made a cleaner shot
or a better kill in all my small experience, for the great buck sprang
right up into the air and fell dead. The bearers, who had all halted to
see the performance, gave a murmur of surprise, an unwonted compliment
from these sullen people, who never appear to be surprised at anything,
and a party of the guard at once ran off to cut the animal up. As for
myself, though I was longing to have a look at him, I sauntered back
to my litter as though I had been in the habit of killing eland all my
life, feeling that I had gone up several degrees in the estimation
of the Amahagger, who looked on the whole thing as a very high-class
manifestation of witchcraft. As a matter of fact, however, I had
never seen an eland in a wild state before. Billali received me with
enthusiasm.

"It is wonderful, my son the Baboon," he cried; "wonderful! Thou art
a very great man, though so ugly. Had I not seen, surely I would never
have believed. And thou sayest that thou wilt teach me to slay in this
fashion?"

"Certainly, my father," I said airily; "it is nothing."

But all the same I firmly made up my mind that when "my father" Billali
began to fire I would without fail lie down or take refuge behind a
tree.

After this little incident nothing happened of any note till about an
hour and a half before sundown, when we arrived beneath the shadow of
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