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"Well, there's a picture in it, anyway," said Kearton, and signed the papers. With his assistant, David Gobbet, two cinematograph machines and tripods, hand cameras and developing apparatus, he set sail immediately for Africa, leaving an order for thirty thousand feet of film to be divided between two manufacturers and to be forwarded as soon as possible.
Then we crossed a small, level park that formed the crest of the first hill, and as we moved down the western slope the view behind us disappeared and the new country spread before us. Kearton was riding with his head sunk on his chest like a sick man. Gobbet asked if anything was wrong with him. "Nothing bad; too much heat this morning, likely." "Want to hunt a bit of shade and lie up awhile?
Nearer and nearer they came, with the dust cloud swirling behind them. Gobbet began turning the handle of his camera, and the whir of the machine sounded loud in the stillness. One or two of the porters jumped to their feet and pointed. Kearton waited. "I hope they won't come straight into the lens," he said. "If they do, it won't make a good picture. They ought to come at an angle.
But the porter was already in the branches, and the tree was so small there was not room for two, and Gobbet had to run for it. The next second, with a powerful upward stroke of his horn, the rhino sent the apparatus flying. Then Means succeeded in attracting his attention and he charged the horseman instead.
"It simmers and it boils," cried Johnston, pushing his hard-lined face through the smoke. In an instant the pot had been plucked from the blaze, and its contents had been scooped up in half a dozen steel head-pieces, which were balanced betwixt their owners' knees, while, with spoon and gobbet of bread, they devoured their morning meal.
Presently the Tailor's wife took a great fid of fish and gave it in a gobbet to the Gobbo, stopping his mouth with her hand and saying, "By Allah, thou must down with it at a single gulp; and I will not give thee time to chew it." So he bolted it; but therein was a stiff bone which stuck in his gullet and, his hour being come, he died.
Gobbet picked up the debris, found that the tripod-head was split clean in two as with an axe, found the camera itself undamaged, found there was enough head left to support the camera, quickly mounted his machine again, and was just in time to catch the end of the rhino's chase after Means.
Every member of the expedition took part in these drives. The Colonel and the writer at one end, and the two cowboys at the other, occupied the extreme positions. Between the right and left wings stretched a long line of porters, under the command of two escaris, and with Kearton and Gobbet in the center with the cameras.
So we started up the line to rejoin the outfit, leaving Gobbet at Nairobi to finish developing the films. We could not afford to spend more time in preparation. At Kijabe we found the horses thoroughly rested and Means's back much improved. He had refused to see a doctor, asserting that his back would just naturally get better of its own accord. He said he was ready to start.
Kearton had just told Gobbet to quit his lying, when all three of us realized that for the last half minute we had been unconsciously listening to the beat of a galloping horse on the road behind. The next instant Ulyate pulled up in a cloud of dust. "Colonel wants you," he said. "They've rounded up a giraffe." We wheeled the horses and started back on the run. "About three miles!
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