"At length the faint dawn came stealing like a ghost up the long slope of bush, and glinted on the tangled oxen's horns, and with white and frightened faces we got up and set to the task of disentangling the oxen, till such time as there should be light enough to enable us to follow the trail of the lioness which had gone off with Jim-Jim.And here a fresh trouble awaited us, for when at last with infinite difficulty we had disentangled the great helpless brutes, it was only to find that one of the best of them was very sick.There was no mistake about the way he stood with his legs slightly apart and his head hanging down.He had got the redwater, I was sure of it.Of all the difficulties connected with life and travelling in South Africa those connected with oxen are perhaps the worst.The ox is the most exasperating animal in the world, a negro excepted.He has absolutely no constitution, and never neglects an opportunity of falling sick of some mysterious disease.He will get thin upon the slightest provocation, and from mere maliciousness die of 'poverty'; whereas it is his chief delight to turn round and refuse to pull whenever he finds himself well in the centre of a river, or the waggon-wheel nicely fast in a mud hole.Drive him a few miles over rough roads and you will find that he is footsore; turn him loose to feed and you will discover that he has run away, or if he has not run away he has of malice aforethought eaten 'tulip' and poisoned himself.There is always something with him.The ox is a brute.It was of a piece with his accustomed behaviour for the one in question to break out--on purpose probably--with redwater just when a lion had walked off with his herd.It was exactly what I should have expected, and I was therefore neither disappointed nor surprised.
"Well, it was no use crying as I should almost have liked to do, because if this ox had redwater it was probable that the rest of them had it too, although they had been sold to me as 'salted,' that is, proof against such diseases as redwater and lungsick.One gets hardened to this sort of thing in South Africa in course of time, for I suppose in no other country in the world is the waste of animal life so great.
"So taking my rifle and telling Harry to follow me (for we had to leave Pharaoh to look after the oxen--Pharaoh's lean kine, I called them), I started to see if anything could be found of or appertaining to the unfortunate Jim-Jim.The ground round our little camp was hard and rocky, and we could not hit off any spoor of the lioness, though just outside the skerm was a drop or two of blood.About three hundred yards from the camp, and a little to the right, was a patch of sugar bush mixed up with the usual mimosa, and for this I made, thinking that the lioness would have been sure to take her prey there to devour it.On we pushed through the long grass that was bent down beneath the weight of the soaking dew.In two minutes we were wet through up to the thighs, as wet as though we had waded through water.In due course, however, we reached the patch of bush, and by the grey light of the morning cautiously and slowly pushed our way into it.It was very dark under the trees, for the sun was not yet up, so we walked with the most extreme care, half expecting every minute to come across the lioness licking the bones of poor Jim-Jim.But no lioness could we see, and as for Jim-Jim there was not even a finger-joint of him to be found.Evidently they had not come here.
"So pushing through the bush we proceeded to hunt every other likely spot, but with the same result.
"'I suppose she must have taken him right away,' I said at last, sadly enough.'At any rate he will be dead by now, so God have mercy on him, we can't help him.What's to be done now?'
"'I suppose that we had better wash ourselves in the pool, and then go back and get something to eat.I am filthy,' said Harry.
"This was a practical if a somewhat unfeeling suggestion.At least it struck me as unfeeling to talk of washing when poor Jim-Jim had been so recently eaten.However, I did not let my sentiment carry me away, so we went down to the beautiful spot that I have described, to wash.
I was the first to reach it, which I did by scrambling down the ferny bank.Then I turned round, and started back with a yell--as well Imight, for almost from beneath my feet there came a most awful snarl.
"I had lit nearly upon the back of the lioness, that had been sleeping on the slab where we always stood to dry ourselves after bathing.With a snarl and a growl, before I could do anything, before I could even cock my rifle, she had bounded right across the crystal pool, and vanished over the opposite bank.It was all done in an instant, as quick as thought.
"She had been sleeping on the slab, and oh, horror! what was that sleeping beside her? It was the red remains of poor Jim-Jim, lying on a patch of blood-stained rock.
"'Oh! father, father!' shrieked Harry, 'look in the water!'
"I looked.There, floating in the centre of the lovely tranquil pool, was Jim-Jim's head.The lioness had bitten it right off, and it had rolled down the sloping rock into the water.
