in motion and comparatively close enter its range of vision. Kingozi and
his man held themselves rigidly immovable, waiting for what would happen.
The rhinoceros, too, held himself rigidly immovable, his nostrils dilating
between snorts, his ears turning; for his senses of smell and hearing made
up in their keenness for the defects of his eyes.

Suddenly, without the slightest warning, he stuck his tail perpendicular
and plunged forward at a clumsy-looking but exceedingly swift gallop.

An inexperienced man would have considered himself the object of a
deliberate "charge"; but an old African traveller, such as Kingozi, knew
this for a blind rush in the direction toward which the animal happened to
be headed. The rhinoceros, alarmed by the first intimation of danger,
unable to get further news from its keener senses, had been seized by a
panic. Were nothing to deflect him from the straight line, he would
continue ahead on it until the panic had run out.

But the two men were exactly in that line!

Kingozi hitched his light rifle forward imperceptibly. Although this was
at present only a blind rush, should the rhinoceros catch sight of them he
would fight; and within twenty-five yards or so his eyesight would be
quite good enough. As the beast did not slow up in the first ten yards,
but rather settled into its stride, Kingozi took rapid aim and fired.

His intention was neither to kill nor to cripple his antagonist. If that
had been the case, he would have used the heavy double rifle that Mali-ya-
bwana held ready near his elbow. The bullet inflicted a slight flesh wound
in the outer surface of the beast's left shoulder. Kingozi instantly
passed the light rifle back with his right hand, at the same motion