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Updated: May 24, 2025
He raised himself on his elbow and looked out over the veld. The springboks were still distractedly tossing here and there, but the army to which he belonged had moved on. It was now on its way up the hill lying between them and the Besieged City. He was dimly conscious of this, for the fight round him had ceased, the storm had gone forward.
So bidding Jan and Trüey stay close by the wagon, and leaving Totty to look after the flock, I took my gun and started off in search of game. I took no horse, for I thought I saw springboks out on the plain; and I would stalk them better afoot. "Sure enough, there were springboks. When I got out of the valley here, and had a better view, I saw what astonished me, I can assure you.
"Yonder he lies, you could hardly have done it better yourself, brother Hendrik." As Hans said this, he smiled in such a manner as to show, that he had no idea of making a boast of his achievements. Hendrik was loud in acknowledging that it was a most splendid feat, and also in regretting that he had not been on the ground to witness the wonderful migration of the springboks.
Mike only grinned, but Mike's grin once seen was not easily forgotten. Suddenly Mike caught sight of something, and bolted. I followed. At the same moment pop! pop! went rifles in different parts of the plain. We could not see anything distant for the bushes, but presently we came to the edge of an open space, into which several springboks were trotting with a confusedly surprised air.
A herd of giraffes was at hand. Some of them were evidently young ones. Three of them he observed were apparently but a few weeks old. The very things for which he had travelled so far were now before his eyes, apparently coming to deliver themselves up. It was not until the springboks swerved to the right to avoid the horsemen, that these little animals became separated from the giraffes.
"I believe that Bremen is right," said Swinton; "it must be one of the migratory herds of springboks; I have never seen them, but I have often been told of them." The body of antelopes now advanced toward them, keeping on a straight path; and to state their numbers would have been impossible: there might have been fifty or a hundred thousand, or more.
The chase led through a large herd of blue wildebeests, zebras, and springboks, which gazed at us in utter amazement. At length I fired my second barrel, but my horse was fidgety, and I missed.
They were induced to take this direction by observing that the springboks had come from the north. By heading westward they believed they would sooner get beyond the wasted territory. To their great satisfaction an hour's travelling carried them clear of the track of the antelope migration; and although they found no water, there was excellent grass.
Had I known what had been causing it, I should have fought my way in any other direction but that; but there was I, out in the open ground, the lion not ten paces from me, and a fence of springboks two deep around both of us! "I need not say I was frightened, and badly too. I did not for some moments know how to act.
Or was it a cloud of dust? The wind was hardly strong enough to raise such a dust, and yet it had that appearance. Was it caused by animals? Might it not be the dust raised by a great herd of antelopes, a migration of the springboks, for instance? It extended for miles along the horizon, but Von Bloom knew that these creatures often travel in flocks of greater extent than miles.
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