In the Heart of Africa by Sir Samuel White Baker
page 74 of 277 (26%)
page 74 of 277 (26%)
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immediately he regained his feet and bounded off, receiving a bullet
from the second barrel without a flinch. In full speed he rushed away across the party of aggageers about three hundred yards distant. Out dashed Abou Do from the ranks on his active gray horse, and away he flew after the wounded tetel, his long hair floating in the wind, his naked sword in hand, and his heels digging into the flanks of his horse, as though armed with spurs in the last finish of a race. It was a beautiful course. Abou Do hunted like a cunning greyhound; the tetel turned, and, taking advantage of the double, he cut off the angle; succeeding by the manoeuvre, he again followed at tremendous speed over the numerous inequalities of the ground, gaining in the race until he was within twenty yards of the tetel, when we lost sight of both game and hunter in the thick bushes. By this time I had regained my horse, that was brought to meet me, and I followed to the spot, toward which my wife and the aggageers, encumbered with the unwilling apes, were already hastening. Upon arrival I found, in high yellow grass beneath a large tree, the tetel dead, and Abou Do wiping his bloody sword, surrounded by the foremost of the party. He had hamstrung the animal so delicately that the keen edge of the blade was not injured against the bone. My two bullets had passed through the tetel. The first was too high, having entered above the shoulder--this had dropped the animal for a moment; the second was through the flank. The Arabs now tied the baboons to trees, and employed themselves in carefully skinning the tetel so as to form a sack from the hide. They had about half finished the operation, when we were disturbed by a peculiar sound at a considerable distance in the jungle, which, being repeated, we knew to be the cry of buffaloes. In an instant the tetel was neglected, the aggageers mounted their horses, and leaving my wife |
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