fifty to seventy-five feet, with tall trees growing at their base
and almost concealing them from our view. To the west the country
was flat and sparsely wooded, and here it was that we saw our first
game--a large red deer. It was grazing away from us and had not
seen us when one of my men called my attention to it. Motioning for
silence and having the rest of the party lie down, I crept toward
the quarry, accompanied only by Whitely. We got within a hundred
yards of the deer when he suddenly raised his antlered head and
pricked up his great ears. We both fired at once and had the
satisfaction of seeing the buck drop; then we ran forward to finish
him with our knives. The deer lay in a small open space close to
a clump of acacias, and we had advanced to within several yards
of our kill when we both halted suddenly and simultaneously.
Whitely looked at me, and I looked at Whitely, and then we both
looked back in the direction of the deer.
"Blime!' he said. "Wot is hit, sir?"

"It looks to me, Whitely, like an error," I said; "some assistant
god who had been creating elephants must have been temporarily
transferred to the lizard-department."

"Hi wouldn't s'y that, sir," said Whitely; "it sounds blasphemous."

"It is more blasphemous than that thing which is swiping our
meat," I replied, for whatever the thing was, it had leaped upon
our deer and was devouring it in great mouthfuls which it
swallowed without mastication. The creature appeared to be a
great lizard at least ten feet high, with a huge, powerful tail
as long as its torso, mighty hind legs and short forelegs. When it
had advanced from the wood, it hopped much after the fashion of a