Child of Storm

The time went by very slowly and nothing happened. The waning moon shone

brightly in a clear sky, and as there was no wind the silence seemed

peculiarly intense. Save for the laugh of an occasional hyena and now

and again for a sound which I took for the coughing of a distant lion,

there was no stir between sleeping earth and moonlit heaven in which

little clouds floated beneath the pale stars.

At length I thought that I heard a noise, a kind of murmur far away. It

grew, it developed.

It sounded like a thousand sticks tapping upon something hard, very

faintly. It continued to grow, and I knew the sound for that of the

beating hoofs of animals galloping. Then there were isolated noises,

very faint and thin; they might be shouts; then something that I could

not mistake--shots fired at a distance. So the business was afoot; the

cattle were moving, Saduko and my hunter were firing. There was nothing

for it but to wait.

The excitement was very fierce; it seemed to consume me, to eat into

my brain. The sound of the tapping upon the rocks grew louder until

it merged into a kind of rumble, mixed with an echo as of that of very

distant thunder, which presently I knew to be not thunder, but the

bellowing of a thousand frightened beasts.

Nearer and nearer came the galloping hoofs and the rumble of bellowings;

nearer and nearer the shouts of men, affronting the stillness of the

solemn night. At length a single animal appeared, a koodoo buck that

somehow had got mixed up with the cattle. It went past us like a flash,

and was followed a minute or so later by a bull that, being young and

light, had outrun its companions. That, too, went by, foam on its lips

and its tongue hanging from its jaws.

Then the herd appeared--a countless herd it seemed to me--plunging up

the incline--cows, heifers, calves, bulls, and oxen, all mixed together

in one inextricable mass, and every one of them snorting, bellowing,

or making some other kind of sound. The din was fearful, the sight

bewildering, for the beasts were of all colours, and their long horns

flashed like ivory in the moonlight. Indeed, the only thing in the least

like it which I have ever seen was the rush of the buffaloes from the

reed camp on that day when I got my injury.

They were streaming past us now, a mighty and moving mass so closely

packed that a man might have walked upon their backs. In fact, some of

the calves which had been thrust up by the pressure were being carried

along in this fashion. Glad was I that none of us were in their path,

for their advance seemed irresistible. No fence or wall could have saved

us, and even stout trees that grew in the gully were snapped or thrust

over.