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Updated: May 15, 2025
I heard every shot hit, and after each hit was more than a little astonished to see the zebra still on his feet, and still able to wobble on.* The fifth shot emptied the rifle. As I had no more cartridges for this arm, I approached to within sixty yards, and stopped to wait either for him to fall, or for a very distant Memba Sasa to come up with more cartridges. Then the zebra waked up.
The trail led us, for the dozenth time, from the high grass into the thicket along the river. We ducked our heads to enter. Memba Sasa, next my shoulder, snapped his fingers violently. Following the direction of the brown arm that shot over my shoulder, I strained my eyes into the dimness of the thicket. At first I could see nothing at all, but at length a slight motion drew my eye.
From my tent I overheard the following conversation between Memba Sasa and the cook: "The grass is high," said the cook. "Are you not afraid to go after a wounded lion with only one white man?" "My one white man is enough," replied Memba Sasa. It is a quality of courage that I must confess would be quite beyond me-to depend entirely on the other fellow, and not at all on myself.
Dusk was falling, and, to tell the truth, we were both very much done up by a long day at 115 degrees in the shade under an equatorial sun. The missing men would climb trees away from the beasts, and we would organize a search next day. As we debated these things, to us came Memba Sasa. "I want to take 'Winchi," said he. "Winchi" is his name for my Winchester 405. "Why?" we asked.
At eleven o'clock the task was done. Then I presented Memba Sasa with a tall mug of coffee and lots of sugar. He considered this a great honour. Two days before Captain D. and I were to return to Juja we approached, about eleven o'clock in the morning, a long, low, rugged range of hills called Lucania. They were not very high, but bold with cliffs, buttes, and broken rocky stretches.
Observe, I say those who hunted well. Memba Sasa, in his profession as gunbearer, had to accompany those who hunted badly. In them he took no pride; from them he held aloof in spirit; but for them he did his conscientious best, upheld by the dignity of his profession. For to Mamba Sasa that profession was the proudest to which a black man could aspire.
A dozen of us squatted around the skin, working by lantern light. Memba Sasa had had nothing to eat since before dawn, but in his pride and delight he refused to touch a mouthful until the job was finished. Several times we urged him to stop long enough for even a bite. He steadily declined, and whetted his knife, his eyes gleaming with delight, his lips crooning one of his weird Monumwezi songs.
Once I suggested that as the work was dangerous, they could quit if they wanted to. "Hapana!" they both refused indignantly. We had proceeded thus for half a mile when to our relief, right ahead of us, sounded the commanding, rumbling half-roar, half-growl of the lion at bay. Instantly Memba Sasa and Mavrouki dropped back to me. We all peered ahead.
I levelled my double gun, ready to press trigger the moment the shoulder appeared in the clear. Then against the saffron sky emerged the ugly outline and two upstanding horns of a rhinoceros! "Faru!" I whispered disgustedly to Memba Sasa. With infinite pains we backed out, then retreated to a safe distance.
After lunch Memba Sasa and I strolled along on a route flanking that of the safari, looking for the first of our meat supply. Within a short time I had killed a Thompson's gazelle. Some solemn giraffes looked on at the performance, and then moved off like mechanical toys. The day lengthened. We were in the midst of wonderful scenery.
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